Revised Nov 24 – 9:30 AM
One of the most interesting things I got to do at Apple was talking to journalists; but being an Apple spokesperson also came with a unique set of challenges.
Before I (or any Apple employee) could speak to the press in any capacity, I had to successfully complete a special communications workshop. The goal was to make sure that I could deal appropriately with the wide range of situations that can come up when talking about Apple and its products.
This was particularly important in my case, as I had some incompatible habits to break. In my work for Astarte and other consulting clients, I was accustomed to speaking to any press person who was willing to take the time to listen. In fact it was a big part of my job to try to ‘get the ear’ of the press. At Apple, getting the attention of the press is never a problem. The opposite is true; the press is anxious for any chance to peak inside Apple. So even though I was only the DVD product manager, journalists could be counted on to ask wide ranging questions about Apple’s products, strategies, management, and more. It was these questions from ‘left field’ that took some training and discipline to deal with.
The workshop involved a lot of role playing, where the trainers would act as journalists and I would be given a hypothetical product to represent. Along with that there would be a set of defined ‘messages’ or talking points. This is basic marketing communications technique, where the product team determines in advance what the key features and benefits of the product are and attempts to distill them down to a few key points that are easy to grasp and communicate. It might be something like ‘the Macintosh is the hub of the digital lifestyle’ or ‘iPod, a thousand songs in your pocket’. Every product had several key messages.
The number one principle of doing a press briefing is to always try to include one or more of your key points in every answer. And in cases where the questions attempt to move things off the topic, you always try to steer things back your direction. This is very simple to describe, but sometimes extremely difficult to do.
In their hunger for interesting tidbits about Apple in general, or Steve Jobs specifically, there could be some truly bizarre questions. I might be in the middle of demonstrating DVD Studio Pro’s ability to preview in realtime when someone would ask ‘is it true that Steve Jobs’ children are vegetarians too?’, or ‘how can Steve have enough time to run both Apple and Pixar at the same time?’. Well even if you’ve thought about such things in advance, it’s still quite jarring to have these questions appear out of nowhere. The training showed some techniques for moving away from these sorts of distracting questions…and trying to get back to the topics…’Apple has a very strong management team which enables us to continually create great products like (insert name of product here)… You get the idea.
To insure that newbies like myself didn’t make too big a fool of themselves when being interviewed, I was always accompanied by at least one person from the PR department. There job was to kick me in the shin (figuratively) if I started to say something stupid.
…flying solo…
…press tour…
…awkward meeting with Newsweek right after Time Magazine had gotten the advance info on the new iMac for their cover story…
View of Central Park from the offices of Newsweek
…not meeting Julio…
…more…
Wow, that’s quite a photo. Is that one of yours, or did you nab it from some Newsweek publicity photo or somesuch?
I took that shot out the window of Steven Levy’s office when we were showing him the new iMac in January 2002. There’ll be more on that later.
who is Steve Levy? These days i saw lots of Steves.
Sally – Steven Levy is the technology editor for Newsweek. Here’s his personal site: Steven Levy
Do you always carry a camera with yourself? Or you had it for some special purpose this day?
Carlos – I often carry a camera. Photography has been a life-long passion of mine.
Mike- This is great! I love reading this!
What kind of things would the PR person that had to be with you do? Obvioulsy if you are in the middle of an interview and this random PR person interrupts you or starts talking before you, then the reporter would know they were heading down the “right path” right?
Great site… just wanted to note a typo which reads, “At Apple, getting the attention of the press in never a problem.” Should be “is never a problem.” Best of luck!
Mike, I don’t know if you recall the story when an M.T. engineer was asked about a beta Apple system on which ModemShare (the software he was developing) was running. His answer allowed the writer to publish what they {perhaps} already knew but needed a patsy/source to attribute the info.
Apple was very concerned with this leak as was the engineer for his job. While talking with him, he maintained a great, learning attitude and was reflecting on his innocence to the press-in-general, and the haunting image of the reporter with notebook in-hand. Then he look at me, smiled, and spoke the W.C. Field’s quote, “I’m shocked to see gambling going on in this casino”.