Sam Whitmore, the force behind Media Survey, recently dropped by Vino Diaries, much to my selfish delight. A PR person myself, I fondly remember many a MediaSurvey teleconference during my agency years where Sam good-naturedly grilled top editors in the name of helping PR folks fine-tune their outreach strategies. For those of you who don't know, Media Survey is the go-to source on technology editorial. Sam's team "reverse engineers" what is getting written about, how it's written and who is writing it to help PR people build and maximize relationships with journalists. You can think of it as the CliffsNotes for tech PR pros.

But Sam is more than just a tech PR pro's best friend - he spent 14 years at Ziff Davis and has unique perspective on how media's current transformation impacts everyone from the editors at the top publications to ad agencies' shifting budgets to the PR person trying to entice a client to start their own blog. PR's biggest mistake? Jumping into conversations with an agenda and not taking the time to "cultivate" the conversation first, a process which can take up to several months.

More PR tips from the master here.