Welcome to Final Final, our remodeled home for insights and outtakes on storytelling in tech PR — and a nod to the creative chaos behind every “final” draft. We’re glad you’re here.
So, why the reboot?
The first iteration of Sterling Communications’ blog goes back to 2007, around the time I was standing in line to grab the very first iPhone on launch day. That first version was fabulously fun and fairly informative, but times changed. After a few iterations with different motivations, we closed the chapter by sunsetting our blog and moved on.
It made sense to us, even if it left us with a funny feeling. We spent so much time writing for others that carving out time to express ourselves in our voice simply fell down the priority stack…and there are only so many hours in the day. . It’s important to do it, though. Our good friend and designer extraordinaire Sarah Mattern likens blogging to tending your own garden:
“The thing is, there are some big drawbacks to renting a plot that’s owned by someone else: the primary one being, it isn’t your own. You’re not able to nurture your own soil over the years, or foster your own chemical-free backyard, or tend to and enjoy your own sanctuary any time you wander out your own back door.”
We won’t even get into Miracle-Gro.
We’re lucky to work with some amazingly gifted leaders and outstanding reporters who are out there fighting the good fight. If there are PR lessons to be learned, we want to do better at sharing them with the class. After some thought, we came back to this book of ours. And now we begin a new chapter.
There’s a ridiculous symmetry in naming something Final Final. The phrase is a nod to the wonderful chaos of creative work — that moment when you think something is done, only to get pulled back in for one more round of edits.
I am writing this blog post the exact same day a client is asking for another round of edits to a document they already approved. The file name ends in ”Final Final.“ Better still — and I swear I am not making this up — I was asked to swap “Final” for “F2” in the file name. You know, just in case. Honestly, I love it. It means our clients care about continually sharing their best thinking.
With Final Final, we’ll be looking for signals in the noise. We’ll share stories about what it really takes to be heard in crowded, skeptical markets — and how PR can drive results without selling its soul to the performance gods. We’ll pull back the curtain on occasion to share what we’re learning, where we’re headed, and how we’re helping tech leaders find their voices.
There are so many stories worth sharing of genuine interest and importance that I don’t know how much time we’ll have for a pet project: revisiting older posts to see what has changed — and what hasn’t. (After 18 years we should have enough to work with.) That deep experience and our insatiable curiosity is a potent pairing.
Yet another reason why nothing around here is ever truly final.
OK. It’s time to hit publish. If you have something to add (or just find a typo), drop us a line or hit us up on LinkedIn. Truth be told, adding an update to this post on this blog might be the perfect ending to the start of something wonderful.