Pirozzolo Company Public Relations

Boston Global Forum Airs Cyberwar and Fake News Issues During Latest Symposium at Harvard University

 

John Savage

Some of the world's leading experts on cybersecurity and fake news convened in Cambridge to discuss the growing threat of computer warfare—more specifically, computer hacking, the intentional spread of “click-bait” fake news, and the political and personal motives behind them.

The symposium was held at the Harvard University Faculty Club in connection with the 2017 Boston Global Forum G7 Summit Initiative titled:  Prevention of Cyberwar and Coping With Fake News.

Brown University Professor John Savage discussed the importance of tracking computer hackers in order to prevent cyberwar and stated without equivocation that Russia was resposndibe for hacking the DNC.

  Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at Finnish computer security company F-Secure presented five types of computer hackers and how he tracks them and their Internet crimes.

Mikko Hyponen

They are:

White hat hackers who help corporations and government agencies identify and eliminate vulnerabilities,

Hactivists who break into computer systems as a form of protest,

Organized crime, which is motivated by greed and responsible for some 400,000 daily attacks,

Governments that engage in espionage, considered acceptable Internet behavior while hacking foreign corporations to steal intellectual property is frowned upon, and

Extremists, such as ISIS, the use the internet to cause harm as well as to recruit sympathizers.

Hypponen pointed out that cyber criminals are often undone by their own vanity, pointing to the alleged Toronto-based Yahoo hacker Karim Baratov, who was tracked down after showcasing his lavish lifestyle on Facebook by openly posting images of his luxury cars and watches.

The Yahoo subscriber hack cost the company $350 million in the sale of its assets to Verizon.

Thomas Patterson

Similarly the emergence of fake news, threatens global stability and democracy in the digital age. Harvard University Professor Thomas Patterson observed that even though the idea of “fake news,” was popularized by President Donald Trump, it has been around for a some time. During the 2016 presidential election, fake news circulated on Facebook exceeded real news coverage of the election.

According to Patterson fake news has become such a phenomenon because it is rooted in our deeply divided partisan political culture in this country in which people look for information to support their own biases and political beliefs, rather than being open to opposing stories. The unconscious engagement in selective perception allows members of both political parties to solidify their own worldview and maintain sometimes-blind partisan loyalty by voters who do not bother to check the “facts.”

Fake news is flourishing due to diminishing source credibility. Fewer people subscribe to legitimate newspapers, while more people are getting information from online posts on social media that are both true and false. This increased reliance on the Internet reliance contributes to public distrust of traditional media outlets. When the voters do not trust the media, they are more willing to trust alternative sources.

Repetition enhances the impact of fake news. The more individuals are exposed to a story, true or false, the more likely it is that they will believe it to be true. When fake news goes viral—often achieved by “like farms,” where people are paid to “like” fake news stories on Facebook to get them trending—people are exposed to the same link repeatedly, and as a result, are more inclined to believe it.

Fake news is spread by professional social influencers backed by their own political motives working every day to intentionally mislead the public and therefore influence voting and opinion polling outcomes. Patterson underscored the importance of nipping fake news at the source. Most fake news is generated by small, illegitimate websites, that are driven by online robots or “bots” that permeate the Web with the falsehoods. Patterson suggested that, as a society, strengthen the voices of reliable, sophisticated, news media, while encouraging bipartisan voices because fake news flourishes in a polarized political environment.

Dick Pirozzolo, a member of The Boston Global Forum Editorial Board and coauthor of "Escape from Saigon-a Novel" set in Vietnam during April of 1975 noted, "The novel underscores how cumbersome and slow news gathering and dissemination used to be. Forty years ago all Americans depended on only three national TV networks and at most two national newspapers creating a commonality of information.  Cable news and the explosion of media outlets is only hinted at in the novel that focuses attention on the media during the Vietnam War—dubbed 'America's first television war.'"

Gov. Michael Dukakis, Boston Global Forum chairman and cofounder  with Tuan Anh Nguyen, opened the session with honored guest Nicola De Santis, Consul General of Italy in Boston. 

For additional observations on Cyberwar and Fake News visit: THE BGF-G7 SUMMIT INITIATIVE

The Boston Global Forum was established in 2012 with the purpose of identifying threats to global stability and forming realistic solutions among academics and experts. According to the Forum’s website, its mission “is to lessen tensions, promote peace and security, and foster conditions that lead to greater social justice and broader economic prosperity.”

 

On Letting Go - to Move Ahead by The Rev. Sarah Robbins-Cole

It was a distinct honor to have been included in the Easter Sunday homily at St. Michael's Episcopal Church, in Holliston, Mass.

Earlier last week, I was chatting with Sarah—my friend and neighbor—who is otherwise known as The Rev. Sarah Robbins Cole. She told me she was working on her sermon for Easter Sunday, the theme was letting go. I suppose the idea is there cannot be rebirth without letting go of those things that tie us to the past.

"Any thoughts?" she inquired. 

Not missing a chance to plug "Escape from Saigon - a Novel," I mentioned that "letting go" is a theme running loosely throughout the story.  

The struggle with letting go is voiced by Billy Freda, the high school friend, who has to let go of the moment he scored the winning point in the championship game, US Ambassador Graham Martin who cannot let go of South Vietnam that had become intertwined with his identity, the reporters who devoted their youth to covering the war and have to find a new life elsewhere, and of course, the two Vietnam veterans who wrote the book—myself and Michael Morris, who saw combat in the Vietnam War as a young soldier in 1967.

That war ended on April 30, 1975—42 years ago on the last day this month.

Here is what The Rev. Sarah Robbins-Cole, Rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Holliston, Massachusetts told her congregation about letting go on Easter Sunday Morning 2017.

 

 Easter 2017

Marie Kondo of the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing is perhaps one of the best known books that has come our way from the field of decluttering and home organization. If you have not read the book, the basic premise of the book is to get rid of things that do not spark joy. Marie Kondo recommends taking out every item you own, in a particular sequence, and touching each item, and if it does not spark joy – out it goes. She has other helpful hints such as not buying more specialized storage containers to hold yet more clutter, and folding your clothes, for example your shirts, in a way that finding a shirt is as easy as flicking through record albums – because they all are standing on end.

The desire to hold on and to accumulate is as old as time and man. Perhaps it’s because we falsely equate accumulation with security. If I just hang on to clothes, household items, food, photos, books, I will never be in want. Who knows? I might need one of these things later.

Or we mistakenly believe that if we throw things away or recycle them – somehow we won’t remember or value what that item represented.

Or sometimes what is harder is we hold on to emotions and memories - something that has hurt us deeply. Maybe you are holding onto a grudge, or an imaginary contract with someone (that is, unless they do x, I will not forgive, move on, or be nice, etc.,). And somehow letting go would be to admit defeat.

When people have asked me this week what I am preaching on this week – and I tell them that I am working on a sermon about letting go – it has been interesting to hear people’s response.

When I told my neighbor Dick Pirozzolo, who has just published the book, Escape from Saigon - a Novel this year, he said, “funny you should say that”. He is himself a Vietnam Vet, but he said in his research and during his book tour, while he has encountered many veterans who live full and rich lives, he also said that he has met a fair number of veterans who live and breathe their days in Vietnam every day—even though the end of this month will mark the 42nd anniversary of the ending of that war. “After all,” Dick commented, “you are 19 years old, your friends are all back home working in a shoe store, and you are in a strange country, surrounded by people speaking a foreign language, and you are getting shot at.”

But he said, the problem is that what happens to some of us is that we get stuck at 19. Our entire identity is formed around being a Vietnam Veteran and that does not allow a new identity to form. Our lives are dedicated to remembering that time – from the stories we share to the social media platforms we belong to and contribute to.

Another friend of mine, who works with students, said to me, “that is such an important message” because she finds that some of her students cling to ideas, ideologies, and identities in ways that are unhealthy because they perpetuate their sense of being powerless victims in a hostile world.

Or another friend talked about a woman she knew who was the team mom of a volleyball team – and she did everything – she organized uniforms, social events, coaches gifts, the booster club – but at the end of her son’s junior year, at the end of season party, when he was not elected captain by his peers for the following year, she was absolutely devastated. She refused to talk to anyone for the rest of the party and her son never played volleyball again – so attached was she to the idea of her son being captain.

I am sure we all have examples from our own lives - elderly parents who cling to the idea of unrealistic independence, or children who can’t seem to quite realize they have actually reached adulthood, a parent who cannot let go of their adult children, etc., etc.,
The subject of letting go is not just a superficial self-help issue. They are deep spiritual concerns – which come to the very heart of our gospel lesson for this morning. Jesus tells Mary – do not hold on to me. Literally – do not cling to me as I am now. I am yet to ascend to the Father. Jesus is telling her that she must not cling to him because his time on earth is done. And why that is important is that first of all, after the crucifixion they can’t just go back to the way things were – and secondly, the ascension is necessary so that the work of Jesus will no longer be constrained to his little corner of Israel – but will spread to the four corners of the earth.

And it’s not just the idea of the physically present Jesus she is going to have to let go of. If she wants to share in that resurrected life of new life and rebirth – she is going to have to let go of everything that is holding her back – she may have to let go of her anger at the Romans for crucifying Jesus, she may have to have to let go of her feelings of resentment at the disciples for handing Jesus over, betraying Jesus, and falling asleep while Jesus was praying when he very clearly asked them to stay awake. She may have to let go of her bitterness toward a world that allows an innocent man to die. She may have to let go of her wrath toward her own people for their maleficent fickleness – who on Palm Sunday lauded Jesus as King – and then jeered Jesus just a few days later when he really needed them.

But let me be clear - there is a big difference between letting go and forgetting. Letting go – means having a willingness to move forward, to not be stuck in the muck and mire of past wrongs. Forgetting is pretty near impossible, and forgiving can be a very long process indeed.

What we celebrate today is the resurrection. We celebrate that when one thing ends – and when we let go and give it to God, and trust that God will do something good and meaningful and life-giving to that of which we let go – we too will live the resurrected life.

God invites us to new life each and every moment of our lives – not to cling to the past – but to be engaged in our lives right here and right now. It is just as Joseph Campbell, the preeminent expert in comparative mythology and religion who wrote: We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.


Along with being coauthor of "Escape from Saigon - a Novel" set during the final days of America's "first television war," Dick Pirozzolo is managing director of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations, an international communication firm based in Boston, Massachusetts.

 

"Squeeze Your Creative Juice"

 

Guest Article by Julie Dennehy of Dennehy Public Relations

specializing in consumer-focused traditional and social media, and community relations 

For more wisdom on creativity, writing, PR management and more visit

Julie's blog: Curious and Clever

Where does a professional communicator fit In a world of "alternative facts" and high profile corporate biographies? Recently, I attended a workshop in the Boston area on "Squeezing Your Creative Juice" - specifically, penning a novel, either fiction or nonfiction.

Led by PR practitioner Dick Pirozzolo, author of "Escape from Saigon" (Skyhorse Publishing New York), Pirozzolo talked about his own experience as an Air Force information officer who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in Saigon in the early 70s, and how he parlayed his experience into a work of fiction about the draft, the last month of the war, the fear and the loneliness of a Vietnam veteran coming home. 

To get us started, the workshop opened with an exercise inspired by Ernest Hemingway. Using photos for inspiration, attendees were encouraged to pen a six-word short story in an homage to "Papa Hemingway" and his bite-sized tale: "For sale. Baby Shoes. Never worn." 

"Leadership is taught through real events," said Pirozzolo, and gave examples of Jobs, Wozniak and Ben & Jerry's as leaders who are also master corporate storytellers. Tension, romance, a story arc and great characters all make our corporate storytelling more interesting and force us to look at the characteristics of the individuals we represent so we are seeing them through a different and more captivating lens. Pirozzolo advised: "As communicators, we need to sell the story, and not just the product." 

Think about the basics of storytelling when it comes to telling your clients' stories:

1. Character: what makes a person interesting?
    
2. Story arc: how does the story build and show continuity? 
    
3. Conflict: find the tension in your story to make it more compelling. "All art is the resolution of conflict, and with conflict comes suspense and surprise. That's what sucks us in 'till the end."
    
4. Relationships. Love is a universal emotion: find the love story even in a corporate story.
    
5. Closing: How does your story end? Who solved the problem? Make it real.
    
6. Props: The products drive the story and reveal characters and their development. "How do you set the stage for your CEO's press exposure?" For more on how props can advance your story and make your message more memorable, check out this analysis of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
    
7. And of course, write for a visually-oriented generation. Be descriptive and creative in your descriptions.

"If you think ‘story’ and a great narrative don't matter, remember: without story, ‘Casablanca’ would be but a pushpin on a map and Ben & Jerry’s would be just another ice cream stand." — Dick Pirozzolo

 

Boston Globe's Larry Edelman Looks To Digital Future

Larry Edelman, The Boston Globe business editor, offered his take on how one of the nation’s top newspapers—the biggest in New England— is meeting the challenges of new information technology and a rapidly shifting readership.

Edelman told the dozen-plus Boston Public Relations Society of America members assembled in The Tom Winship Room, just off the newsroom, “The Globe is tailored to be an online news operation that also happens to print a newspaper,” except now the overhead and salaries have to come from subscriptions rather than advertising. “When subscriptions pay my salary, we have to give readers something they are willing to pay for.”

The Globe’s online paid circulation is over 70,000, the highest among any regional newspaper in the US and, between BostonGlobe.com and its free regional website Boston.com, the paper garners a million unique hits a day.

The Globe has to stand out Edelman said, “We don't want to be in the commodity news business. We want to cover ideas, not companies with obligatory news stories simply because they are big and old.”

Edelman told the group he believes the Boston economy is well positioned with a diverse range of forward- looking industries such as biotechnology, real estate development, medicine and education. “We’re in a bubble but it’s a lucky bubble.”

The emphasis is also on covering those industries from the perspective of how they impact the lives of people in the region. Explained Edelman, “We are at the intersection of people who create and the money,” adding that Trump’s “preposterous 20-percent cut to NIH [the National Institute for Health] would be disastrous to this area.”

Given the importance of medicine and biotechnology regionally, The Globe last year launched STAT a premium subscription service offering exclusive reporting about the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as well as newsletters, invitations to events, early access to special reports, and other reader benefits.

The Globe is evaluating its news beats to reflect shifting interests as well. “The business of food is an increasingly popular topic that pulls in new readers and is getting more attention editorially.”

Deadlines have changed too. “Our readership swells between 6 AM and 1-2 PM so our best stories have to be up in the morning—when our readers are online. Filing new stories at 4-5 PM in the afternoon should be for the next day’s edition.”

The editorial staff is about half of what it once was during the heyday of print, The Globe is moving to smaller quarters in downtown Boston with the printing plant located in Taunton and run as a separate business. It prints the competing Boston Herald and other publications. The Globe’s emphasis on great journalism and its institutions will continue. Notably The Spotlight Team, which was awarded an Oscar for the motion picture “Spotlight” will remain firmly in place.   

Though The Globe, and other newspapers are moving inexorably to publishing exclusively online, we’ll probably still be calling them newspapers for many years to come.

 No matter. We still dial the phone.

By Dick Pirozzolo

Pirozzolo Company Public Relations

www.pirozzolo.com

Vietnam War Literature May Hold Key to Current US Image Overseas

 America's government leaders—many of whom know the Vietnam War only through stories told by their parents  and grandparents—are looking back at that painful conflict to understand our current position in the world with regard to extended foreign conflicts, caring for veterans, the media's shifting role in society, and especially how our nation treats refugees—the most vulnerable victims of war.

The wave of interest in a 40-year-old war that divided our nation and defined a generation accounts for the popularity of current literary offerings on Vietnam—among them “The Sympathizer,” “Tribe,” and the just published, “Escape from Saigon  - a Novel."  In addition these and other books, there has been a recent spate of films, TV documentaries and theatrical productions over the past year that shed light on a war that ended abruptly on April 30, 1975. 

Vietnam War refugee Viet Nguyen’s 2016 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “The Sympathizer,” shines a harsh light on conflicted foreign allegiances and an America-centric view of foreign conflicts. The “Sympathizer” stands up as an allegory for today’s new hyper nationalism and fear of the other.  Nguyen’s companion book of 2015,  “The Refugees” further examines the subtle complexities and conflicts of leaving ones native country for a new home in America.

Though not strictly a Vietnam War book, “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging,” by Sebastian Junger, examines the plight of returning combat veterans by likening the military to tribal societies where individuals share loyalty, a common purpose and depend on one another for survival. Junger argues that post traumatic stress may stem partly from the loss of community veterans face as they try to adjust to civilian life. When a 22-year-old Army sergeant, who has made life-and-death decisions as leader of a four man-squad in combat, comes home to be surrounded by people who know nothing of his experience the loneliness sets in and becomes overwhelming.

Published in January of 2017, “Escape from Saigon - a Novel” by Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo looks at how the Vietnam War shaped contemporary American attitudes in a fast-paced fictional account that compresses the action into the final 30 days of that three-decades-long conflict and put the endgame in context through flashbacks, old news accounts and barroom ramblings about political decisions made in the 1950s that set the stage for war.

The novel recounts the events of April 1975 through the lives of ordinary people most affected by the fighting and political bungling of the powerful they encounter. In addition to Vietnamese and American civilians there are journalists, French expatriates, US Embassy staffers and CIA operatives, all seeking escape by any means possible as the North Vietnamese Army tightens its stranglehold on Saigon—a city once known as the Paris of the Orient. Indeed, the final scenes of “Escape” recount the courage of hordes of Vietnamese refugees and the aviators and sailors who helped them in the biggest air-sea rescue in history, and an America that welcomed them with open arms.

The story is as much about the war as it is about the evolution of media, with much of the plot being about the journalists who covered what was dubbed America’s first television war.  Correspondents back then devoted their youth to covering Vietnam, often for a decade or more and shaped public opinion through vivid, nearly simultaneous TV pictures of battles and newspaper exposés on the Pentagon Papers and My Lai Massacre. “Escape’s” Lisette Vo, NBS-TV’s first Vietnamese-American war correspondent, foreshadows the rise of women in journalism and the advent of 24/7 cable news, while the hard hitting Sam Esposito of The Washington Legend rips into three presidents—especially Dick Nixon—with investigative reports that changed the course of history.

Access to news and information was fairly limited in 1975. There were only three networks. Their anchors were trusted, larger-than-life figures Americans invited into their living rooms. The evening news was appointment TV and we all watched and read essentially the same news—a far cry from today’s media environment with fragmented cable TV audiences and fake Internet news outlets. The technology has improved, but with it Americans lost its sense of community.

In addition to the several books on the Vietnam War, Miss Saigon will be reprised at The Broadway in March and simulcast to local movie theaters in HD to reach a large nationwide audience. Lana Noone’s new play, “Children of the April Rain” about Operation Babylift, the ill-fated evacuation of mixed heritage children during the last days of the Vietnam War is opening around the country. Rory Kennedy’s film "Last Days in Vietnam" and Ken Burns latest PBS-TV documentary "The Vietnam War" add to the contemporary offerings on the subject.

For a live interview with Morris and Pirozzolo on

America's Best Selling Authors Series 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Escape from Saigon - a Novel” by Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo was published in January of 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY, 264 pages and lists at $24.95. Further information and an excerpt are available at: www.escsapefromsaigon.com

 

 

PR & Crisis Management Pros: Can you handle a SIMAD attack?

At the end of 2015, our financial services industry friends — foreign exchange (forex) brokers, traders, trading platform developers and financial technology companies — were hit by a tsunami of DDoS attacks.

Luckily the DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service attacks that recently shut down more than a few financial and forex trading sites are pretty crude. Says futurist Ted Gordon, “DDoS hackers have been around for a long time. They simply send so much data at one time that they are able to overwhelm the system and bring it, and customer access, to a screeching halt.”

The defense: build a bigger a pipe.

For example, FCM360 (www.fcm360.com), a secure ecommerce network provider and managed cloud hosting service, increased all of its upstream ISP bandwidth to repel attacks of up to 20 Gigabits per second internally.

“Additionally FCM360 contracted with security providers to increase its DDoS prevention capability to over 300 Gigabits per second in New York and London. This means we can withstand and mitigate nearly all current DDoS threats targeting the financial services and e-commerce industry,” says Jubin Pejman managing director

But Gordon, whose clients have included NATO and other international government entities, says that while DDoS attacks can be repelled “by building a bigger pipe, I worry about the future when a sophisticated lone-wolf SIMAD terrorist decides to penetrate the financial sector or the power grid for that matter."

SIMAD stands for Single Individual Massively Destructive.

Gordon, the lead author of “Lone Wolf Terrorism Prospects and Potential Strategies to Address that Threat,” sees us “in a race between the destructive capacity of an individual who can inflict harm on the level of, say, putting out all the lights on the Eastern seaboard, and the tools of detection and interdiction that might be available to thwart such efforts.”

To detect and stop such individuals Gordon believes an algorithm, using data from many different sources, will be developed to asses terrorism risk. The algorithm will produce a “risk number” similar to FICO scores that are based on debt collection and payment information and use a complex formula to determine an individual’s credit risk. “The terrorism database will be much larger, include more factors and, if proven statistically and used cautiously, could serve as a predictor of terrorism risk,” says Gordon.

“The data are likely to use facial recognition in new ways. For example, as someone enters the US, his or her passport photo might be matched to photos from a security camera near a restaurant in Brussels that is a known hangout for terrorists and shows the individual meeting with suspected terrorists.”

He added that law enforcement can also be expected to penetrate trading and ecommerce systems to test for reactions. This can include “fake trades” to learn whether our financial systems can withstand a large scale, sophisticated attack. Sources say TJX, for example, didn’t know its computer system had been breached until the FBI alerted the company. And, even after the company swept its system, hackers were able to leave behind a small bit of undetected code that continued to pirate credit card information.

Though sophistication and risk of devastation may increase, motivations will remain pretty much the same: “Greed, terror, or just proving one can break in to cause embarrassment,” says Gordon.

What does this mean for  the public relations advisor and crisis manager?

As PR pros we have to be astute observers of the shifting balance between organizational transparency, access, civil liberties, and public safety. In times of stress or fear the pendulum can swing toward putting safety above constitutional protections. PR pros need to caution clients against overreach. When the pendulum swings back the organization will face legal and public perception backlash.

One of the most fragile and perhaps outdated systems we have is the power grid. Could terrorists or foreign power take down our electric grid, as Ted Koppel speculates in a new book, Lights Out: A Cyberattack, a Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath. Despite our best efforts to protect our own systems and data, an attack against the power grid will eventually bring down all our access to information and communication.

Think low tech too.

While you may have set up terrific communication systems that take full advantage of twitter and other social media outlets to instantly respond to customer concerns, community worries and employee needs, what do you do if the power grid is down or your data center is flooded? Make sure your disaster plan includes essential elements. Maintain a paper notebook with key political, senior management and media phone numbers and addresses. Establish a prearranged off-site meeting place for management and essential employees in the event of a major disaster. Make sure folks know how to initiate a pyramid alert plan. Have at least one hardwired phone that does not depend on an outside source of electricity as phone lines may be operative during an outage.

Pirozzolo Company Public Relations advises: one of the biggest mistakes corporate chiefs make during a disaster is to respond to media questions that are outside the scope of the organization's responsibility. If the building is ablaze, flooded, or a violent crime has been committed on premises or the FBI is investigating a cyber attack, let public safety and law enforcement officials respond to the immediate media questions. There will be ample time for a thoughtful response to the media on how the company will recover and what protections will be put in place to prevent a recurrence. Learn some simple deflections such as, "The FBI is involved, and we do not want to jeopardize their investigation," or "Let's focus on the fire department getting the blaze under control, I'm glad all out people got out without injury," or, "An arrest has just occurred and, in the interest of protecting the privacy of our employees, please direct your questions to  local law enforcement."

“Lone Wolf Terrorism Prospects,” by Ted Gordon, Elizabeth Florescu, and Yair Sharan, is available in paperback at Amazon.com or as a downloadable PDF file at www.lonewolfthreat.com.

Vietnam-US Bond Grows Stronger Through Boston Global Forum Efforts

Dick Pirozzolo serves on a panel at Vietnam CEO Summit 2015 organized by Boston Global Forum and Richard Moore Associates. Boston Global Forum, a think tank founded by Tuan Anh Nguyen and former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, fosters US ties with Vietnam through cultural events, innovation projects, peace initiatives and trade.

I was honored to serve on a panel during the Vietnam CEO Summit 2015 in Ho Chi Minh City, where over 100 of Vietnam’s top executives and business owners came to learn about American marketing principles and how to penetrate markets in the US.

Since I had worked very hard on reconciliation and trade between the US and Vietnam during the mid-1990s and had been absent for a long time, it was gratifying to see how much tighter the bond between Americans and Vietnamese had become over the years and how welcoming the delegates were to ideas from the USA.

The July CEO Summit featured Harvard professors, journalists and marketing experts. Prof. John Quelch of Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration led the all-day discussion, reviewing Harvard Graduate School of Business case studies covering The New York Times transition to the digital age and its formula for determining how many free views visitors get before a paywall pops up.  Quelch also reviewed Amazon’s phenomenal success as an online marketer, comparing retailing in Vietnam, which is extremely fragmented, to the US. The event was organized by Boston Global Forum, a Boston think tank, founded by former Governor Michael Dukakis and Tuan Anh Nguyen, who is responsible for opening Vietnam to the Internet, and Richard Moore Associates, a Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City marketing firm. In addition to organizing this event, Boston Global Forum takes on a key issue each year aimed at the promotion of peace and security in the world. This year The Forum is focusing on establishing an ethical code of conduct for the Internet in light of the rising tide of state-sponsored and other cyber threats around the world. 
 
When conference delegates asked how to promote Vietnam in the US, I urged them to rely on cultural events—including Vietnamese and Western classical musical performances—and celebrity to promote their nation. One recent example of the power of celebrity: President Clinton’s recent visit to Hanoi was big news in the US and had enormous impact by placing Vietnam in the front of Americans’ minds.  

The close relationship between Vietnam and the US is seen in ways big and small. For instance, you know Vietnam is integrated into our popular culture when Modern Family character Cam Tucker can pull off  a comical bit on how American’s can’t pronounce Pho, the traditional Vietnamese breakfast soup. Cam tries a couple of pronunciations on his adopted Vietnamese daughter's pediatrician who finally quips, "I wouldn’t know, I’m Japanese."

 Modern Family is the most popular show on American television, drawing an audience of 10 million—that means the writers are counting on a huge cross section of Americans to have enough awareness of Vietnam to get the joke. And, when you can comfortably bring in humor, that’s a big deal in terms of a positive relationship.
 

A stylish woman shops on Dong Khoi Street, the Newbury Street of Saigon.

Since the US formally recognized Vietnam in July of 1995 and granted most favored nation status, this nation of 90 million has become an important business and trading partner, travel destination and major ally in maintaining peace in Southeast Asia. Imports from Vietnam are increasing steadily with last year's imports totaling $30.6 billion. US exports to Vietnam are $5.7 billion. In the first four months of 2015, Americans imported products worth $15 billion from Vietnam and sold $2.6 billion worth of goods. Worldwide, Vietnam is increasing its exports of manufactured goods—electronic components and clothing, specifically. According to Vietnam News Service, the export of staples such as rice, coffee and seafood have all fallen off slightly while the value of crude oil exports fell by 45%. In Ho Chi Minh City signs of greater wealth, style and nightlife, especially among millennials, are everywhere. 

About 400,000 Americans and 100,000 Canadians are expected to visit Vietnam in 2015 according to Vietnamese government statistics. Vietnam is very welcoming, I never felt any residual animosity during my involvement with Vietnam over the years. Notably over 60 percent of the populations was born after the American War ended in April of 1975—40 years ago. A prominent Vietnamese leader who was a child at the time said of those years, we just wanted the war to end.

“To put that 40-year time span in perspective, 1985 marked the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II and Americans were driving BMWs and Toyotas with nary a thought and the Japanese and Germans were listening to Phil Collins and Journey. 
 
Panelists are from left  Moderator Nguyen Duc Son, brand manager, Richard Moore Associates, Michael Morris, journalists and author, Prof. Thomas Patterson, Harvard University, Tuan Anh Nguyen, chairman and co-founder of Boston Global Forum, Nguyen Van Tuong, president Tram Huong Khanh Hoa, a major agar wood supplier, Dick Pirozzolo, Pirozzolo Company Public Relations and editorial board of Boston Global Forum and Llewelyn King, host, White House Chronicles airing on PBS.

Click here for additional details and photos of Vietnam during the 90s
 

Two young executives at the Vietnam CEO 2015 Summit. One big change: Ho Chi Minh City has become more fashionable over the past 20 years. Navy blue and charcoal Western suits are commonplace among men and, except for special occasions and among hotel, airline, and conference greeters, the demure Ao Dai is seldom seen in the city.

60 Minutes, North Korea Bring Cyber Threats into Focus

The 60 Minutes' feature titled "Swiping Your Card" and the alleged North Korean attack against Sony have brought cyber risks into sharper focus than ever before.

 60 Minutes outlined the trail a credit card swipe can take to the dark side of the Web where an active market in stolen account information exists. In addition to theft, cyber attacks can be launched for political reasons. Most recently Sony claims its servers were hacked "in apparent retaliation for the Kim Jong-un baiting comedy The Interview," reports The Guardian.

For insight into the current state of cyber security we asked Anders Corr, Ph.D who is a global authority on the subject and founder of Corr Analytics, a risk advisor to government and industry. The interview with Dr. Corr first appeared in the current edition of FCM360 Forex Summit.

Q. Can you tell our readers about  Corr Analytics and how you got into the cyber security business?
 
A. As security moves from physical structures to algorithms in the cloud, we believe there will be tremendous growth in cyber-security technologies, budgets, and contracts. We are exploring teaming agreements with lawyers and technologists who specialize in cyber-security, cyber-insurance, and actuarial approaches to cyber-risk.
 
Q. We’ve heard the term Cyber-War. Is it a war?
 
A. Yes. The United States, China, and Russia are putting  resources into cyber-defense. An estimated 3% of the US defense budget is spent on cyber-defense, including public and black-budget expenditures. The US almost certainly has the most powerful cyber capabilities of any government. While the military possibilities of cyber strategies are barely known, military use of cyber strategies will grow exponentially in the coming decades.
 
The US and Israel developed the Stuxnet virus, which they used to take control of and overheat Iranian centrifuges sometime before 2010. Stuxnet was thought to have destroyed up to 20% of Iranian uranium enrichment capacity. Attacks like this could take control of nuclear arsenals or asset trading algorithms, with potentially disastrous results.
 
Q. What motivates cyber attacks and who are the players?
 
A. Cyber attacks are launched by governments, criminals, terrorists, and teenagers. Unfortunately, these categories overlap. The motivations for cyber-attacks range from stealing data to disruption of enemy processes. 
 
Q. What can the US do to protect us from cyber attacks?
 
A. The US and NATO needs to spend much more on cyber defense -- on the order of 5 to 10% of total defense spending -- to both defend against cyber attacks and to take the offensive if necessary. We need to get ahead of the Chinese and Russians, and determine whether cyber is an offense-dominant technology in warfare. If it is offense dominant, then the first mover has an advantage, and we need to consider going on the offensive rather than passively building cyber defenses as the French built the Maginot line prior to WWII.
 
At the very least the US needs to hit back against offending countries for not keeping their cyber-criminals and cyber-troops under control. If a cyber attack emanating from Russia results in a major loss to the United States economy, then cyber tactics can be used to recoup those costs, plus penalties, from Russia. No penalty invites further attacks.
 
Q. What about out and out theft?
 
A. On July 25, 2013, the worst cyber theft to date was announced -- a loss of $300 million. Ukrainian and Russian hackers stole 160 million credit card numbers from Visa, J.C. Penney, Jet Blue, and Carrefour, selling the data for $10 to $50 per card. The costs were never recouped from Russia or Ukraine.
 
Q. What is out government doing to thwart attacks?
 
A. The U.S. needs to do more against autocratic regimes that are targeting the United States and our allies. Russia has flown nuclear bombers near Europe recently, and China frequently harasses Japanese planes and ships in their own 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone. The U.S. should be using its cyber superiority to degrade the abilities of the Russian and Chinese militaries, and bring them to the negotiating table on issues that matter to us -- including nuclear proliferation, the China Seas, and Ukraine.
 
Q. Retailers, financial institutions, governments and the rich and famous have become cyber targets. Can an small companies—PR firms included—expect to fly under the radar?
 
A.Small businesses need to educate themselves on cyber-hygiene, and practice due diligence by asking their partners, suppliers, and contractors to disclose their cyber-security practices and preparedness. Small businesses, however, need to team with larger businesses to lobby government and provide greater cyber-security protections to the companies that compose the U.S. economy.
 

How to Promote Your Company with Case History Articles

A Published Case History is a Powerful Sales Tool

If you want to reach your customers with a credible, in-depth message about the benefits of choosing your company, consider publishing a Case History Article in a trade magazine covering your industry.

 A case history article tells customers that you not only fill their orders but you help them solve their problems. You go the extra mile and then some.

The third-party endorsement from having a case history appear in a respected trade publication is invaluable. In addition to those who read the article in the publication, using a reprint in an email promotion or as a leave-behind is far more powerful than a flier, which is you saying nice things about yourself. Likewise, published articles containing your company URL helps with Search Engine Optimization and Google Rankings to help customers find your company.

Additionally, when a case history is published, it gives sales people a valid reason to contact prospects and existing customers.

Getting Started

Identify a situation in which you responded particularly well to a customers’ need and how your approach might have varied from the expected.

Once you have done so, ask your customer to participate by being interviewed for the article. Most folks are flattered and want to help. Don’t worry about giving away trade secrets – you won’t – or having the competition descend on your customer and take that business away. Customers don’t jump ship after you demonstrate how much you care about their success and value your relationship.

Let’s use a recent case history article in the trade magazine Flex007about client Mass Design, a manufacturer of printed circuit boards for military, medical and aerospace applications.

Click here to read: Customer, PCB Maker Collaboration is Key as Military, Medical Devices Shrink in Size 

Identify the Problem Solved

The article in Flex007 is about electronics manufacturers who invariably press the boundaries when it comes to cramming more capability into smaller and increasingly fail-proof products.

In this case it was a new generation of wearable radios for soldiers. Mass Design used an elegant solution to make sharp bends in the flexible circuitry so that it would fit in the allocated space – called flex to install.

The solution was not as grand and complicated as landing a man on the moon. It didn’t have to be. A simple problem-solution scenario, to which colleagues can relate, will often win the day.

Is Your Solution Different?

Your solution need not be vastly different from others. The article relies more on the specifics of your particular solution in a specific application and how it benefited the customer

The Flex007 article covered a clever technical solution that other engineers may learn from.  Its overall  theme though was to underscore the value of face-to-face collaboration. At a time when engineers almost exclusively communicate by teleconferencing, computerized 3D models and digital document transfer, Mass Design, instead, met face-to-face with the customer’s engineers. Instead of computer modeling, The Mass Design engineers made mockups out of Mylar called paper dolls to test the fit, something we see less frequently. It showed the reader that Mass Design is willing to go against the tide to solve customer problems.

The article hit readers on an emotional level too. This was old-fashioned, hands-on, trial-and-error engineering – like Edison inventing the light bulb. It’s why engineers become engineers – they like to design and build stuff. It was fun.

Write a Pitch Letter

Once you have the problem-solution scenario down, identify the relevant publication and editor. Write a one-page email letter suggesting the article. Tell the editor the problem, how your company solved it and how it benefited the customer. You might want to include a customer comment supporting the value of your solution.

Mention why you are qualified to write the piece such as having been the design engineer on the project or you have a writer in mind with experience covering the industry.

Having photos to illustrate the solution helps and can be attached to the pitch letter or sent as a link.

Conclude with a sentence saying, “Your editorial suggestions are welcome,” to indicate your flexibility and willingness to meet the editors requirements.

If you feel you don’t have the writing chops, hire an experienced PR pro or freelance writer. This individual will typically prepare a pitch letter based on your verbal description, “sell” the editor on the idea, write the article and handle photography and graphics. Here are some writing talent resources:

• The Society of Professional Journalists runs a directory of freelancers listed by state and specialty 
• Media Bistro’s Freelance Marketplace offers a stable of writers around the world
• Smaller PR firms will often take on ad-hoc editorial projects. O’Dwyer’s lists firms by specialty.  

Include Experts

To make the article more credible and powerful, include authoritative voices in addition to the problem solver and customer to support your theme. Academic or government leaders are often willing to comment or may be quoted from their published articles relating to the subject. Bringing in other voices also improves the piece by making it read more like an article than a long advertisement or advertorial. Full credit is a must.

Fit Into the Big Picture

In Mass Design’s case, the piece incudes DARPA, the government agency that supports futuristic defense projects emphasizing how this small radio project relates to broader defense policy – the US military is relying increasing on smaller, more versatile fighting units that operate independently but still need to be linked to one another and to their commanders.

In addition to covering the specific technical solution and defense policy trends, Mass Design is supporting an economic turnaround by bringing jobs back to America. Aside from the obvious – the Department of Defense does not like developing military equipment in foreign countries  – proximity to the customer simplifies collaboration and cuts way down on turnaround times during the prototype stage of product development.

The article states, “Being part of the Route 128 Technology Highway community and located in the shadow of MIT and [defense contractor] Draper Labs offers an environment that encourages innovation.”

Explain the Technology

This is where the rubber meets the road. Explain how you did it in simple terms that your neighbor would understand if you were chatting over the back fence. Explain every term and spell out every acronym in the first reference. Even if you think everyone knows what a flexible circuit board is, offer a brief explanation. Those who already know won’t be put off.

Take a lesson from The Wall Street Journal. Though the Journal has a more savvy business readership than The New York Times its editors explain business terminology more clearly and consistently than the Times.

Here is an example from the Flex007 article: “While printed circuit boards (PCBs) used to be made with a photo process akin to the way magazines produce printing plates, this has changed with implementation of direct laser imaging (DLI), which allows for far tighter tolerances than with photo imaging processes.”

So the next time you do a great job for a happy customer, consider telling the story to the people in your industry. It just might lead to more happy customers. dp

How to Get a Case History Article Published

Identify the problem. Don’t look for ending world hunger or landing on the moon, simple advances tell a more relatable story.

Identify the Solution. It need not be unique, just a little different from the norm in that specific applicationwill do. 

Relate to the big picture. How does this problem-solution scenario fit into a larger industry, economic or financial trend, such as recovery, employment, government regulation or latest international business trends. 

Include experts.  Quotes from government or academic leaders lend credibility to your assertions. You might even give a nod to competitors. An article about Ford’s Euro styling won’t be diminished by mentioning Audi or BMW – the readers have heard of them anyway.

Keep technological explanations simple. No matter how smart you think the readers are someone who picks up that magazine may be in finance, procurement or administration and not directly involved in engineering. Explain technology as you would to those outside the industry. Both lay people and technical experts love inside information if you make it easy and fun.

By Dick Pirozzolo of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations, Boston 

How to Get a Major Newspaper to Profile Your Company CEO

When Katie Johnson of The Boston Globe emailed me to say she wanted to interview Jeffrey Ornstein - the Boston-based international hotel designer - for her regular Sunday Business Section Column I was thrilled.

And, a few weeks Later Jeffrey's interview appeared in: Seven Things You Should Know About Jeffrey Brice Ornstein.

Johnson gave her readers a personal account of how Ornstein founded  J/Brice Design International in 1989 and turned it into a hotel design powerhouse with development projects in Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as well as the US. His firm redesigned the original Queen Mary that lives on as a hotel and wedding venue in Long Beach, California.

How do you get The Globe to cover your business or your client?

Pirozzolo Company pitched Johnson with a well-thought-out email and followed through with an approach based on my Five Media Placement Principles. 

1. Find the hottest current issues and pound away at them. In most every case your business or client has some relationship with front page news. In this case, it was the Arab Spring and how J/Brice managed to obtain a contract to design and complete a brand new luxury hotel in troubled Alexandria, Egypt.

2. Get your CEO to talk about personal experiences - make him or her into a 3D personality ala Richard Branson, Tommy Hillfiger or Bill Gates. Think about how many CEOs share nothing of their personal lives and compare that to how much more human one seems when they let us in. Tommy Hilfiger talks openly about his autistic child and Bill Gates introduced us to his wife Melinda and their global activities outside of the office. Jeff talked about his dreams, how he once literally swam with the sharks and the minutae of life - like paying a $1,000 in baggage fees to get samples to Saudi Arabia.

 3. Give away real, actionable how-to business tips. While the secret formula for Coca Cola works for Coca Cola, a successful interview has to include actionable advice – tactics a competing business owner can employ. Too many interviews are too vague and thus too boring to have any real impact.

4. Have fun with the interview - it’s not scripture, it’s one story in a spate of articles that, over time, will establish the CEO as a successful personality. Loosen up! Show some warts.  

5. Don’t be a helicopter parent to your CEO. If your job is to promote or, for that matter, protect your CEO, remember he or she did not get to be the boss because someone hovered constantly. Let your CEO and the reporter develop a personal relationship without your being present. Too many CEOs  revert to PR speak when the head of public relations is sitting at the table. 

Here is an excerpt from my note to Katie Johnson at The Globe that was the springboard to her Sunday Business Section feature. The note relies on a headline and bullets to quickly make the point without a lot of preambles or pleasantries.

It gets in makes the point and gets out. And it works!

J/Brice Design Creates Luxury Hotel Interiors in an Uneasy Middle East Where Arab Nations Compete for High-End Business Travel

• While others may see only conflict, Jeff Ornstein finds opportunity.

• The center of hotel innovation has shifted from Europe to the Arab World.

• Hotel Designer Ornstein is recognized as a Cultural Spy, who gets access to people, places and opportunities seldom available to Westerners

• He’s a preferred consultant  to Arabian Royals, Saudi Sheiks and Egyptian Generals

While U.S. political leaders mull war in Syria, Egypt convulses from the Arab Spring’s power
vacuum, and Libya, Lebanon still feel its aftereffects, Jeff Ornstein is sought after by the region's leaders to design hotels and resort properties in the Middle East.

 His latest project is the new 1,200-room, $160 Million Royal Tulip Hotel in Alexandria, Egypt overlooking the Mediterranean.

Months of demonstrations and Egypt’s regime change might seem like the wrong time for an American to get involved in the incongruous business of developing new luxury hotels to support Egypt’s troubled tourism industry, just now beginning to recover....

By Dick Pirozzolo, Pirozzolo Company Public Relations