The Rule of Firsts

First is almost always remembered more than second, and things are no different when it comes to public relations. When someone does something first and you are the PR person, you have to do all in your power to make sure it’s known that what you represent was first.

It’s a little strategy PR people use all the time to create a spokesperson for an industry. Sometimes, you become the spokesperson by default.
- First man on the man
- First mp3 player (wasn’t iPod, someone lost that opportunity)
- First personal computer
- First to climb Mt. Everest

I love to see when the default spokespeople step to the challenge and do it honorably as is the case with Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to scale Mt. Everest.

Apparently, someone recently died 1,000 feet short of the Everest summit in what is known as the death zone. The low amount of oxygen makes it terribly dangerous, and if you go down, chances are no one will help you because they will die if they do, and it just happened. Forty climbers walked right passed solo climber David Sharp, 34, as he was starving for oxygen and crippled with altitude sickness. He died, and reporters all wanted to know what Hillary thought about it.

“It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say ‘good morning’ and pass on by,” Hillary said. “I think the whole attitude toward climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top.” via Yahoo

In this case, I doubt someone tried to make him the spokesman for Mt. Everest climbs, but he is, and I think he does a might fine job of helping shape the public opinion on the safety of scaling the mountain and the sanctity of human life.

sidenote: More than 1,500 climbers have scaled Everest. 190 have died trying. Those aren’t good odds.