Site visits, interviews, "doing a story"
I get many requests from companies to come out and visit them for a Digest story. Or someone will ask me to give them a call to talk about their company. I'm afraid that I just don't have the time. The Digest is basically a hobby and there are only so many hours I can devote to it each month. Those hours are taken up by the time it takes to put the issue together.
As a general rule, if it's not something I can call up on my computer, it won't get into the Digest. I don't really "do stories" -- the Digest is primarily a compilation and analysis of publicly available information. If your company has information you think is newsworthy, or you have a clarification or correction, you can e-mail it to me or send me a URL to look at and I'll read it before the next issue comes out.
E-mail is the best way to contact me, and I look at everything I'm sent (that makes it past the spam filters, anyway), but Digest-related e-mail gets a lower priority than anything work-related so it may take a while before I get to it.
Confidential information; relationship between the Digest and clients or sponsors
For the work I do, I need people to feel comfortable talking around me -- often about highly confidential matters. Nothing goes into the Digest unless it falls under one of these two categories:
- Publicly available information -- which usually means it's somewhere on the Web, or
- Information given to me by someone who's expecting me to use it in the Digest
That someone doesn't have to be the company -- it could be current or former employees, competitors, customers, suppliers, or anyone else.
I hear lots of newsworthy stuff, but until it meets one of those two criteria, it won't be in the Digest. My presumption is that the information I hear from the people I work with is confidential, and I've been pleased that this has never been an issue in all the years I've been doing the Digest.
The flip side of this is that once it does fall under one of the two criteria -- and if it's something I would normally include in the Digest -- then it will go in, even if it's about a company I work with and it's something they would prefer not be publicized. There's no preferential treatment given to clients or sponsors.
I think of the Digest as a hobby rather than a business development tool. One of the reasons it's been popular over the years is that it's not a "party line" PR gloss over the area's tech scene. I want the Digest to be a credible source of information, so I edit it for the benefit of its readers, not to win favour with local tech companies. Still, the feedback I get from companies is generally positive. Usually. :-)
Not for attribution information
I never identify anyone in the Digest who passes along information where they would not want to be identified as the source. I can't always use this kind of information (although I enjoy reading it), but if you send me something for the Digest in confidence, you don't have to worry about seeing your name attached to it and I won't tell anyone where it came from.
