Why a PR department would be Great to out beloved LMG

[VascoM]

First of All....Old Guy here, been following LTT since the beginning, old nerd since the days of ZXSpectrum, i´m not an hater, or what they call in LTT foruns,a Reddit hater, i´m a fan...but i´m not stupid or blind...

I´ve said since the beginning of this PR S.. storm that LMG needed to address this via its CEO...they did not until now and Linus response was just more fuel to the fire ( a bit of an artesianaanswer". Now the CEO finally appears, but instead of being in a relaxed setting and calm, they film him, like he´s being grilled by toe NYC detectives  for questioning and with eyes wide open... the same to the other members of the team. WTFrak?

I see a lot of naivité in LMG ways of work , that cannot exist in a multimillion-dollar company. Gamers Nexus used LMG own employees' clips stating that they were working too hard and were unsatisfied with the quality of their work, that was posted in a public video. That can be fantastic clarity to the public...but normally, that is only used internally in a company, in order to improve processes and WOW and solve the issues. Also, A very bad amateur error was to send content out without cutting claims of one of their employees bashing by name Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed methods of benchmarking. One of basic rules of the competition: One does not bashes the competition just to boast " Hey, unlike these guys and these guys, we do this" .You will get flak for it, and your glass ceilings will be targeted.

Luke Lafreniére has been a sort of Jiminy Cricket( conscience) to Linus, bringing him back to Earth when he starts to forget the connection to us common mortals. One cannot say " Hey, this was wrong but i could not spend 500 buck extra of time from my team" and at the same time have its team destroying a startup and "auctioning" their prototype. I can only think after this and the story of the mouse that did not slide, that only a real idiot would send LMG something new to test with the risk of being destroyed at the spot or even worse...having the risk of losing prototypes that can be potentially auctioned and end up at the hands of competitors....at this time Linus should have all his team trying to find out where the prototype is.Not paying back. If someone gets it and decides to use it, its a catastrophe to that company .

Another thing...Linus believes sometimes that he knows more than everyone...and Luke a lot of times cannot bring him to reality, like when he defended the ridiculous amount of ads we have to endure plus his sponsors...heck, sure, of computers he knows way more than I do and many of its followers...but of dealing with managing customers and public relations...a lot of us know way more than him.

I usually don´t write about this kind of things ..i´m over 50, i work in one of the biggest companies of the world and have a company of my own ( way smaller than Lunis . I like a lot of the content, its fantastic to see Linus journey, like a little reality show. But Linus, you are no longer the underdog, you cannot expect the " Trust me bro". If you tried the "trust me bro" policy with the backpacks here in the European Union...you would be in big, big trouble...

Its maybe time to see new processes, assign correct jobs to the teams and be prepared to be scrutinized as the other big companies are..I´ll be waiting to see it...Ni, I d´m´t subscribe to Floatplane yet but have more that 2k bought in merch...and yes, monetizing this video was a bd move...also the shout outs to a new screwdriver and the impronptu jokes..Please...PR PEOPLE...GOOD ONES... NOW

[Erioch]

They need more than a PR Department.  They need to sign up for one of those reputation restoration services.  I have no idea if they work, though.

[venomtail]

Slippery slope is that with a proper PR department LTT will definitely start sounding like a generic corporation, to the point where employees/devs have to sneak in their own messages past managers and bosses like it was for CDPR and their CP77 conversations. Whilst it in of itself was PR, very different from what usually is read on mainstream news and still feels more genuine.

[VascoM]

3 minutes ago, venomtail said:

Slippery slope is that with a proper PR department LTT will definitely start sounding like a generic corporation, to the point where employees/devs have to sneak in their own messages past managers and bosses like it was for CDPR and their CP77 conversations. Whilst it in of itself was PR, very different from what usually is read on mainstream news and still feels more genuine.

Actually no. A 100 milion dols company needs a PR Team. It would have stopped all that lead to this, having good PR is not bad, it does not turn a company in nothing bad if you have a good and healthy culture.

[DrHax34]

13 minutes ago, VascoM said:

Actually no. A 100 milion dols company needs a PR Team. It would have stopped all that lead to this, having good PR is not bad, it does not turn a company in nothing bad if you have a good and healthy culture.

They don't need to have a PR department. A PR department is less than transparent which isn't what the community wants. Linus just needs to avoid replying to stuff emotionally without thought. He needs to gather feedback, ponder and think carefully and THEN answer the concerns.

[turb01]

Having a PR team, would just allow linus to throw someone under the bus when he comes up with a stupid take.

 

[Radium_Angel]

Good actions, speak for themselves.

If you need a PR team to spin your rep...you've done something wrong already.

[MrSebSin]

Not sure a PR department is enough. The "apology" video was basically this... 

 

[Buck1972]

First off, having 25 years in IT and tech, I follow LMG for the entertainment value.  And I will continue to follow it.

 

That said,  in a 100 person company, there are bound to be screwups. As Linus said, how you respond to screwups is the key.  Linus is a smart guy.  As a media personality, he is a personality.  This is his life's work.  But sometimes that comes with the territory where you read issues and complaints as personal attacks, and Linus can be entirely too glib.

 

A large part of this is that it is called Linus Media Group.  His name is on it.  With the way the world works today, people are coming for him, ready and willing to conflate simple mistakes into some world spanning controversy.

 

The response to mistakes is learn and do better, which they are.  So I am cool with it.  

 

But the main issue is not a PR department.  It really is a blind spot in knowing what will cause a problem.   Media companies have a retractions and corrections process.  Except strangely for Gamers Nexus.  Steve needs to get that in order.

 

If everyone on the team is looking at something, there is a danger of group think.  What they need is a small sample size group who will tell them when they see a problem before it becomes a BFD.

 

 

[VascoM]

22 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Good actions, speak for themselves.

If you need a PR team to spin your rep...you've done something wrong already.

Actually no, a PR department is good for many companies...those companies who think that don´need it...have something wrong with them. Its a bit like those guys that think that dont need a HR department

[Radium_Angel]

5 minutes ago, VascoM said:

Actually no, a PR department is good for many companies...those companies who think that don´need it...have something wrong with them. Its a bit like those guys that think that dont need a HR department

We'll agree to disagree. No harm no foul.

[VascoM]

33 minutes ago, MrSebSin said:

Not sure a PR department is enough. The "apology" video was basically this... 

 

That was just..stupid.

[Majinhoju]

I think I saw a whole bunch of them walking over to their lab location. Maybe they're having a big meeting over this?

[Erioch]

45 minutes ago, MrSebSin said:

Not sure a PR department is enough. The "apology" video was basically this... 

 

That was extraordinarily tone-deaf and makes me think that no one at LMG is taking any of this the least bit seriously.

[VascoM]

15 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

We'll agree to disagree. No harm no foul.

No problem..but hey, actually, a PR team would have allowed LMG to do the things Luke Lafreniére said  and I quote :

"Be better in communication,  be respectful and conscious of the impact of our words, do not negatively compare to our tech reviews, when we fail, we apologize and respect our partner's money". A PR, i.e. COMMUNICATION TEAM, work is just that. Also reviewing videos in order to stop things that are wrong.  And they would surely have better prepared the apologies video. Because you can be right in what you say, but if you say it wrong...you´re wrong.

[VascoM]

Lastly..monetizing an apologies message...its just more bad  communication.

[plane_]

50 minutes ago, MrSebSin said:

Not sure a PR department is enough. The "apology" video was basically this... 

 

Exactly this- who in their right mind decided to plug LTTSTORE and the screwdriver in this video? That's so ridiculous lol.

[Radium_Angel]

5 minutes ago, VascoM said:

A PR, i.e. COMMUNICATION TEAM

I would say more of an ethics team is needed, but wording on that may be splitting hairs

[DrHax34]

4 minutes ago, plane_ said:

Exactly this- who in their right mind decided to plug LTTSTORE and the screwdriver in this video? That's so ridiculous lol.

Is that really your only takeway from the video? It's like folks hear one wrong thing and BAM the whole video is suddenly shit.

[Erioch]

8 minutes ago, VascoM said:

Lastly..monetizing an apologies message...its just more bad  communication.

Looks like they did reverse course on the monetization and turned it off.

2 minutes ago, DrHax34 said:

Is that really your only takeway from the video? It's like folks hear one wrong thing and BAM the whole video is suddenly shit.

Honestly, it was very jarring to me when I watched it.  Like a turd in a punchbowl.  It made it hard for me to take the rest of it seriously.

[VascoM]

3 minutes ago, DrHax34 said:

Is that really your only takeway from the video? It's like folks hear one wrong thing and BAM the whole video is suddenly shit.

Really ? you did not read anything except that line ?

[plane_]

3 minutes ago, DrHax34 said:

Is that really your only takeway from the video? It's like folks hear one wrong thing and BAM the whole video is suddenly shit.

No, that is not my "only" takeaway from the video. It's the part I am commenting on because it is my MAIN takeaway. Do not try and fix things with your communtiy and act as if you are "open" and or "transparent" all while shilling for your own products. I am sorry if this offends people here, but this is the exact stuff that LTT themselves would have jabbed at back in the day.

 

The apology itself deserves criticism for not only the shill comments, which in all fairness were seldom, but for the lack of even mentioning Madison or any of the concerns she mentioned about the workplace there. They intend to sweep that under the rug.

 

So no, that's not my only takeaway. Done meat riding LTT?

[VascoM]

2 minutes ago, plane_ said:

 

The apology itself deserves criticism for not only the shill comments, which in all fairness were seldom, but for the lack of even mentioning Madison or any of the concerns she mentioned about the workplace there. They intend to sweep that under the rug.

 

So no, that's not my only takeaway. Done meat riding LTT?

You do know that these kind of serious acusations are adressed in a court of law and not in social media, right ? So far a person made some accusations, but did not accuse the alleged persons of harassment.  Are you over 18 ? Because it seems you do not have the maturity or intelligence to discuss this. When you discuss using sexual slurs, as you do, that is blatant sexual harassment... if you have a job, I would see that as a red flag. So its ridiculous to pretende being triggered when you are harassing someone here...

[plane_]

3 minutes ago, VascoM said:

You do know that these kind of serious acusations are adressed in a court of law and not in social media, right ? So far a person made some accusations, but did not accuse the alleged persons of harassment.  Are you over 18 ? Because it seems you do not have the maturity or intelligence to discuss this. When you discuss using sexual slurs, as you do, that is blatant sexual harassment... if you have a job, I would see that as a red flag. So its ridiculous to pretende being triggered when you are harassing someone here...

We both know what is right is to address the wrongdoings, if there are any, and at the very least clear the air. We can sit and argue semantics and legality all day, but what is right is right, and what is wrong is wrong. I am well over 18 and have experience with corporate BS like this. 

[VascoM]

3 minutes ago, plane_ said:

We both know what is right is to address the wrongdoings, if there are any, and at the very least clear the air. We can sit and argue semantics and legality all day, but what is right is right, and what is wrong is wrong. I am well over 18 and have experience with corporate BS like this. 

YOu don't seem over 18...a lot of times its not black and white...its grey.