2 April 2017 (Serifos, Greece) – Last week, Pam Edstrom died. She was the early spokesperson for a new company called Microsoft, leaving the company in 1984 to co-found the PR company Waggoner-Edstrom, whose key client for many years (indeed, to this day) was that same Microsoft.
For those of us that cover technology, are enmeshed in the tech ecosystem, she is a legend. Pam was instrumental in shaping, for better or worse, a lot of the conventions that are now standard in tech PR. For instance, “pre-Wagg-Ed” … as it was commonly called … reporters generally spoke to tech execs with no PR folks in the room. Now, even startups (when they can get away with it) follow the Wagg-Ed model of having detailed strategic publicity plans, implemented by hand-picking the right reporters.
Speak to anybody about her, and yes, you will hear about her client-friendly innovations. But what you will hear more about is her honesty and her passion– for both her clients and for her belief that tech would be a huge and beneficial benefit for society. Though not averse to spin, the truth mattered to her. If a critical story was fair, she’d defend the reporter, even if Bill Gates himself was furious. And the industry knows many of the “hoo, boy, is Gates mad!” stories.
In a tribute over the weekend by her business partner, Melissa Zorkin, she noted that Edstrom often coached reporters before meetings with Gates, sometimes gently suggesting ways to reword a question that might elicit a fuller answer — or at least not shut the interview down. She continued:
In a scene that was often repeated, a reporter once called Pam to confirm a scoop about a senior Microsoft executive who was about to resign. Pam noted gently, as she often would, that “a reasonable person” might characterize a 60-something-year-old man leaving a company as more a retirement than a resignation. (Message received.)
She was one of a handful of public relations executives with whom most reporters gladly spent time. She was quote-worthy, although not often quoted. There was a reason for this. Pam really seemed to have deep respect for reporters, viewing them as another kind of client. So she always kept in mind what they needed to tell a story.
But there was a bigger key to her success. She would really dig deep to understand the business of each client, and thereby how to think strategically about it in a disciplined way. Only from that would her client begin to think about how to communicate – whether to employees or the outside world, including the press. Brian Coloy, a long-time friend of mine at Ogilvy & Mather, noted she was so smart and insightful, she mentored many to “grow as a business person. She was keenly aware of the need to understand people—what excites them, scares them, intrigues them—and build communications from that”. I think that was why I heard her called so many times “a force of nature”. My favorite quote about her from all the blog posts, Tweets, etc. this weekend was from Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s vice president of corporate communications, a former Waggener Edstrom president who worked with Edstrom for many years at the agency before joining the tech company: “Ideas dripped behind her where she walked. She always had an idea. She was unbelievably curious about everything”.
But they weren’t just ideas. One of Edstrom’s hallmarks was her ability to connect public relations and storytelling to business objectives and goals, often stopping colleagues in their tracks by asking them which business problem they were actually trying to solve.
I will leave you with part of her 2016 commencement speech to the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts, recalling her early days at Microsoft when the company “was just a scrappy little start-up that no one expected to last. And Bill Gates was just 26 years old. The business media had NO awareness of or INTEREST in Microsoft”. From the transcript of that speech:
The problem I had to solve: how can a smaller company be seen and make an impact?
Undaunted, I called the New York Times technology editor. His crisp reply was: “I do not talk to PR people. Drop the material off.”
I really had to dredge up my courage after that disastrous call, and I managed to wrangle meetings with the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Time, and Business Week.
In the meantime, my next big project was Comdex, the major computer show of the time. 200,000 people were going to descend on Las Vegas. From the moment attendees stepped off the plane to the time the show ended, we were determined that all they would see was Microsoft Windows. So we put Microsoft on the keychains of rental cars: Windows! We put Microsoft on cocktail napkins in bars: Windows! We even put it on pillow cases in 10,000 hotel rooms: Windows!
We were the little company that could.
Six months later, Bill Gates graced the cover of Time. And a few days later, the technology editor at the New York Times called ME.
So if you know where you want to go. And the problem you’re trying to solve. Then think creatively and courageously…and maybe a little bit outrageously. And you will increase your odds of getting to success.