I founded Glide Technologies in 2003. I’d previously been running a digital agency and a good journalist friend of mine was regularly moaning to me that he was writing about some of the largest companies in the world but could not get good quality press information online. I was curious and soon found out he was right. I quickly realised that here was a market that wasn’t being properly served. The internet had changed the way journalists work and PR needed to change too. Glide was born and we rolled out our first online newsroom to Sony that summer. That was just the beginning and we soon started adding other major brands to the portfolio (PwC and John Lewis being clients 2 and 3 – still with us, by the way). At the same time, we invested heavily in building the Glide platform to include journalist relationship management, content management, contact databases, distribution and coverage-tracking.
Our focus on servicing large organisations gave rise to two of our foundational values: an absolute commitment to quality service and a determination to build solutions that are easy-to-use.
From the start, we aimed to innovate on the cusp of change. Innovation remains the basis of how we compete. Back in 2003, however, I had no idea just how exciting this space would become. Changes in the media landscape, of course, have been dramatic in the intervening years. The atomisation, deterioration and diversification of the newspaper industry have been fused with ever-greater blogger and social media influence.
These changes affect everyone in the communications industry (and beyond) and the need to innovate has never been greater. Most major brands recognise that what worked yesterday just won’t cut it today. Glide, a platform for driving efficiency and effectiveness in media relations, evolved to became equally important for managing social media and blogger relations and we developed a range of tools to drive multi-channel engagement.
Most recently, we’ve examined measurement. How do you effectively measure reputation across today’s vast and fragmented media space? How can you quickly get a clear picture while there’s still enough time to do something about it? We found our clients wanted to engage and understand in one stroke. This is why we spent three years building our latest product, GlideIntelligence. For us it’s the final part of the jigsaw – a real-time measurement platform that encompasses both traditional and social media. This time around, as an established business with a large blue-chip client base, we’ve had the benefit of working hand-in-hand with some global brands to build the solution, but I have to say that, going out now as I am and telling people all about this new technology actually reminds me of those very early days in 2003.
Sam Phillips
Founder and CEO