Snowden, SpiderOak and the Value of a Strong Point of View

Edward Snowden with the Guardian's editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger (right) and senior reporter Ewen MacAskill (left) in Moscow. Photograph: Alex Healey for the Guardian

On Thursday, the Guardian released the first video excerpts from its exclusive interview with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has garnered an enormous media following but has so far agreed to talk publicly to only a small handful of news organizations (His first and only interview for an American television audience, with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, was broadcasted on May 28.). In the Guardian interview, Snowden cited the concept of a “zero-knowledge” privacy environment as a model for cloud computing, and endorsed BOCA’s client SpiderOak as a prime example of this privacy-first model. The widely publicized interview led to a flurry of interest from other high-level media influencers and customers wanting to learn more about SpiderOak and its platform.

The topic arose when the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, asked about the future of cloud computing and Snowden responded, “What cloud companies need to pursue in order to be truly successful is called a zero-knowledge system.” When asked for an example of this, Snowden cited SpiderOak: “There’s a company called SpiderOak,” he said, “[that] has structured their system in such a way that you can store all of your information on them but they literally have no access to the content of that information. So that yeah, while they could be compelled to turn it over, the law enforcement agencies still have to go to a judge to get a warrant to get that encryption key from you.”

The resulting deluge of coverage, in publications ranging from Gigaom to the Wall Street Journal, has raised SpiderOak’s visibility to unprecedented heights, along with generating a high volume of incoming leads, and BOCA is extremely proud to have helped SpiderOak reach this publicity breakthrough. While it only takes one high-profile interview to bring a client to a new level of recognition, BOCA and SpiderOak have worked together for years to lay the proper groundwork for this moment. It began when BOCA sat down with SpiderOak to develop the idea of a “Zero Knowledge Privacy Standard” in 2011, leveraging the company’s unique approach to protecting customer data to make its offering stand out from the rest of the crowd. When revelations of NSA spying led to a spike in interest in privacy-first technologies in 2013, BOCA had already done the heavy lifting to make SpiderOak the first name in any discussion of “zero-knowledge privacy,” a term coined by BOCA and SpiderOak during our initial messaging brainstorm in 2011.

There has been a rising drumbeat of coverage for SpiderOak over the past few years, including features in the New York Times and TechCrunch, but Snowden’s specific endorsement of the “zero-knowledge privacy” model in the Guardian interview, and his reference to SpiderOak as the best example of this technology, raised the company to a new level. Since Thursday, SpiderOak has been written about by nearly every major technology and business publication, along with many top tier general news and political outlets as well (check out the impressive summary of SpiderOak’s press coverage here), and continues to field interview requests at an overwhelming rate. SpiderOak has also seen an enormous surge in interest from potential new customers – website traffic spiked in the following days and the company experienced five to six times higher signup rates. While the full impact to SpiderOak’s bottom line has yet to be seen, the upside so far looks tremendous.

The lesson that we take from this public relations achievement at BOCA is that a strong and clearly communicated point of view, based on a technology that answers a real market need, will ultimately lead to client success. Though it may not always arrive on a predictable timeline, the benefits of good PR will accrue after serious and thoughtful work to promote the client as an industry leader with a specific message for the market. There is no “magic bullet” solution to put a company on the world stage, but ultimately the value of a creative, well-planned and rigorously executed PR campaign is almost immeasurable. We are extremely happy with SpiderOak’s success, and proud to have helped bring our client this unprecedented level of positive recognition.

BOCA Earns Top “Technology Campaign of the Year” Award for SpiderOak Messaging

PR World Awards announced this week that BOCA’s client SpiderOak won the “Best Technology Campaign of the Year” award for the “Zero Knowledge Privacy Standard” campaign that we developed with SpiderOak to help the company rise above the crowded and competitive cloud storage market. Named the “Gold Winner” of the global award for PR excellence by the SV US Awards judging panel, the SpiderOak campaign won out against stiff competition, including the two high-profile “Silver Winners,” the publicly traded computer processor manufacturer AMD, and the Israeli PR firm Blonde 2.0, which launched the highly successful Viber Desktop application.

We are extremely proud of our work with SpiderOak, and equally as pleased with SpiderOak’s success in advancing its brand and message, and ultimately, its bottom line. Facing deeply entrenched competition from established cloud storage brands such as Box and DropBox, SpiderOak and BOCA crafted an original approach to successfully enter the conversation around cloud storage providers.

BOCA first began working with SpiderOak in 2010 and developed the idea of a “Zero Knowledge Privacy Standard” in 2011, leveraging the company’s unique approach to protecting customer data to make its offering stand out from the rest of the crowd. Shortly afterwards, SpiderOak solidified its position as the secure rival to Dropbox after a major security breach in the same year.

After unveiling its first enterprise-class secure and private cloud in 2012, SpiderOak needed to make a bold move. BOCA worked with SpiderOak on a declaration that 2013 would be ‘The Year of Privacy,’ and built on the Zero-Knowledge Privacy Standard foundation to boost SpiderOak’s role not only as a secure cloud services provider but also as a thought leader on Internet privacy issues. When the Edward Snowden leaks about the NSA’s activities led to a spike in the privacy conversation in June 2013, SpiderOak became the go-to resource for reporters covering privacy and security issues. The campaign effectively positioned SpiderOak as an industry leader and boosted its bottom line with significant lead generation.

SpiderOak’s media exposure in 2013 was unparalleled, with stories about its Zero-Knowledge Privacy services running in publications ranging from daily newspapers to tech-focused blogs. Some of the highlights included a feature in the New York Times, a profile in TechCrunch, and coverage from a wide variety of tier one outlets, including the AP, the New Yorker, InformationWeek, the US News & World Report, and a cover-page story in the San Francisco Chronicle.

SpiderOak and BOCA, which continue to work together to spread the word about the importance and feasibility of a private Internet, will be honored at the PR World Awards banquet on Monday, June 23, in San Francisco. We are delighted to share this achievement, and look forward to many more successful campaigns in the future. To learn more about the PR World Awards, visit www.prworldawards.com.

Congratulations to Our Client, Instart Logic, on a Successful Funding Round!

The Instart Logic team with Robert Scoble

On Tuesday, our client Instart Logic announced two amazing milestones – they closed a $26 million Series C funding round, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and simultaneously announced that they had been named a ‘Cool Vendor’ in Web Computing by lead analyst firm Gartner.

Just a year out of stealth mode, Instart Logic’s innovative approach to application performance has delivered dramatic results for customers ranging from One Kings Lane to the Washington Post, and their technology is making existing content delivery networks obsolete. As lead investor Matt Murphy told TechCrunch, “performance is the new gold on the web,” and this investment shows commitment to the company and the new market they are taking on.

Check out some of the coverage of this fantastic news from top-tier reporters below. Congrats to the Instart Logic team - we’re excited to keep the momentum going!

·      Dow Jones, Deborah Gage - Instart Logic Raises $26M to Deliver Web Content Fast

·      GigaOm, Jonathan Vanian - Content delivery network Instart Logic rakes in $26 million in funding

·      Silicon Valley Business Journal, Cromwell Schubarth - Instart Logic raises $26M to help businesses deliver cloud-based apps

·      TechCrunch, Ron Miller - Instart Logic Bags $26M in Series C Funding To Continue Reinventing Content Delivery Networks
·      VentureBeat, Kia Kokalitcheva - Mobile web apps are slow. Instart Logic now has $26M to try and change that

Celebrating the Wisdom of Our Mothers This Mother's Day

Raising children takes a village, so what better way to celebrate Mother's Day this Sunday, than to share the wisdom that our own mothers have imparted to us over the years?

Below are a few gems from our mothers -- some shouted through the fence at Little League games or over the hum of the school bus as it carried us off to class, and others shared over a hug or glass of wine. All the same, it's the wisdom we've chosen to savor and repeat to ourselves when we need it most because it makes us better friends, better professionals and better humans.

From our BOCA family to yours -- Happy Mother's Day and a warm thank you to all the mothers in our village.

We’d love to hear from you as well! Please share your own motherly wisdom here in the comments or on BOCA’s Facebook page.

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"Your dreams are my dreams, so go make them happen."

"You can be whatever you want to be."

"You show people how you would want to be treated."

-- Adriana Jimenez

“The first thing you should do when you walk into a room is listen."

"Never turn your back on the ocean."

"Go run and play, but stay where I can see you."

-- Ashley Breinlinger

"Enjoy your life to the fullest and go, go go! You only have one life so embrace and enjoy."

-- Kathleen Shanahan

“Do your best, that's all you can do." My mom would say this when I was in high school, stressing over physics or chemistry homework.

“Don't chase people. When you have to chase someone and convince them to be a part of your life, the relationship never works out." On dating/marriage.

"Live in the present and don't spend too much time ruminating about the past. You can't change the past, so don't spend too much time there." On life.

-- Becky Quinlan

"Stay on the right bus, and if you fall off, get back on." My mom was teaching me that you should always be moving forward in the right direction.  It's okay if something happens or you "fall off,"" as long as you get back on quickly, before the bus gets too far away from you.

-- Peter Day

“You can dust it off and try again.”

"Just be nice and do your best, that's all anyone can ask from you."

“There are more things to admire in people than to despise."

-- Alex Petralia

"As long as you try your hardest, you shouldn't have any regrets."

"Do what makes you happy. Don't let anyone else tell you what you should do with your life."

-- Ann & Irene Hodge

"If it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile." (Huge smiles run in the family.)

"Don't ever let anyone tell you you're not good enough. You can do anything you set your mind to." 

"Where's your jacket?!?" (Every time I leave the house -- she still asks.)

-- Alivia Snyder

"Do the best you can. If you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again."

-- Michelle Reingold

"Sticking your head into gopher holes may seem fun at first, but it's really just expensive in the end."

-- Ashley to Bella

“Somebody said that it couldn't be done, and he with a chuckle replied,/‘That maybe it couldn't, but he wouldn't be one to say so at least til he tried.’/So he buckled right in with a trace of a grin on his face, if he worried, he hid it./He tackled the thing that couldn't be done, and what do you know...He did it!” These lines were from a poem by Edgar Guest that my grandfather often told to my mom and that she passed along to me with her love.

-- Michael Kellner

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all."

"Always remember to smile."

-- Alicia Cormie

"Measure twice, cut once." My mom was an architect and very detail-oriented. I'd like to think that she said this often to encourage me to take a more thoughtful, conscious approach to plotting out my life, but really she was probably just tired of how much colored paper I wasted on school projects.

-- Ben Marrone

The Long-Term Payback of a Positive Culture

The other day I was speaking with another principal at a very hot, high-tech PR firm here in San Francisco about hiring in the Valley and the use of recruiters. Demand for good PR pros is so high that even award-winning agencies throughout the Valley have to rely on recruiters to bring good candidates in.

Now while there’s nothing inherently bad about recruiters (though they can prove to be expensive), I’m proud to say today that BOCA has never used a recruiter.

Why?

The simple answer is, BOCA has never needed to use a recruiter.  We have built a brand and reputation around our culture that attracts PR professionals from big global agencies and hot boutiques to our front door. Dare I say it, we practically have everyone from account executives to vice presidents lined up to join the BOCA family. Now that is a nice problem to have.

As the founder of BOCA, I am very proud of BOCA’s culture. We are:

Amazing

Caring

Diligent

Fabulous

Giving

Hard-Working

Intelligent

Kind

Loving

Open

Passionate

Relentless

Savvy

Smart

And the list goes on. (Check our Facebook page to get a glimpse of our wonderful employees.)

Beyond the lovely people working at BOCA, we have a few unwritten policies that play an important role in growing our positive culture.

No Gossip. I’ve worked at many firms where the water cooler chatter is exhausting. At BOCA, our open communication about all aspects of the business and honest talk with employees means people don’t really feel the need to gossip.

Work Hard, Work Healthy. I expect our team to work and I want them to work hard for our clients. However, we recognize the importance for relaxation. We encourage mid-day workouts, walks around the block or up to the park. In fact, this holiday season the entire company got FitBit wristbands, so we encourage each other to get away from our desks and stay healthy “every step of the way.” We also urge employees to work from home on Friday – or even take a midweek day to work from home when you want to block out all the distractions and fuss of a PR office (we all know how it gets sometimes…).

No Burnout. Back to the fact that we do work hard; we also pay attention to our amazing peers and encourage time off. If we sense even a hint of burnout, we make our lovely colleague take time off – from a spot day to a full vacation. It is important to ensure our team members are taking care of themselves. If they are a happy, our clients are happy.

Work From Wherever. BOCA has a fabulous brick and mortar space. We are located in a wonderful old antiques and art gallery on Francisco Street in North Beach. That said, I’ve always encouraged a “work from wherever” policy. If someone needs the energy of a café, then please, go to a café. If someone needs the quiet of home, please, work from home. If someone has a family vacation in Hawaii, but really will work from Hawaii, go work from Hawaii. And if working at the BOCA offices makes you happy, then work from BOCA. If “working from wherever” encourages productivity, then we want our team to be able to work from wherever. The caveat is when the client is onsite or your manager really wants a group onsite meeting. But, if that’s not the case, please, go be productive from wherever.

No Abuse. Many folks in the tech industry are watching the RadiumOne news discussing CEO Gurbaksh Chahal’s guilty plea to two misdemeanor battery charges. There are no excuses for any form of abuse. Abuse – be it emotional or physical – is unacceptable. In my past personal and professional life, I’ve witnessed and experienced abuse and it is no good. We don’t tolerate abuse at BOCA, and if we see it, we eradicate it quickly.

The culture at BOCA is so important and so strong that a word-of-mouth reputation has sprouted up around us. I am proud to see this. May our culture continue to be positive and thrive.