tags”,
enterURL: “Enter the URL”,
enterImageURL: “Enter the URL of the image”,
enterImageDescription: “Enter a description of the image”,
fullscreen: “fullscreen”,
toggleFullscreen: “Toggle fullscreen mode”
};
try{convertEntities(quicktagsL10n);}catch(e){};
/* ]]> */
Well New Orleans is finally surfacing after Hurricane Isaac made an appearance in our city. As a communicator it was hard to be without power. No power may mean no AC and everything in your fridge is spoiling but to a communicator no power means no TV and no internet. I was so desperate for information and to connect with the outside world that I went as low as to “watch” the radio. Continue reading →
We have all heard of Spring cleaning and in the South, where I am from, we have freezer cleaning when it is hurricane season.(This basically means you use all of the items in the freezer so in case you lose power you don’t lose a lot of frozen items). Either way they are both dedicated times that you stop each year to focus on clearing out the clutter and reorganizing yourself.
While it is hard to stop in the PR world, summer is the perfect time to stop and clean up the shop. Add it to your Outlook calendar to save time for cleaning. Tackle those things that you wish you had time to do that would make life easier but you don’t have time to stop. Continue reading →
An article recently published over at the MIT Sloan Management Review blog caught my attention. Essentially, the article asserted that in a world where optimism reigns, a little pessimism is a good thing.
In our culture, pessimism is generally perceived as a state of mind where one anticipates negative outcomes. We often classify individuals as either optimistic or pessimistic based on the age old question, “Is the glass half empty or half full?” We tend to classify those who answer “half empty” as stewards of a pessimistic outlook, always focusing on the negative and what’s likely to go wrong.
Despite the stigma that pessimism has, can it be interpreted as an undervalued asset and a valuable tool in PR? Continue reading →
Last week I wrote about the marketing issues associated with the Rebel Race, a military style, mud-laden obstacle course. The organizers promoted it as a grueling course that allows participants to “test their physical toughness and mental endurance.” Because of a lack of mud and a few unsafe obstacles, the race failed to live up to the hype which sparked a muddy revolt on the company’s Facebook page. Continue reading →
All too often, we see CEOs put their foot in their mouths. Remember Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ “apology” last year? Or how about former BP CEO Tony Hayward and his “relatively tiny” Gulf oil spill comment? These types of words cannot only stain a chief executive; it can also hurt a company. In the cases above, both Netflix and BP suffered mightily.
These types of instances are very preventable though. One of the things that are often forgotten about in our PR planning is media training. Continue reading →
Did you hear the news? Last week while President Obama was busy finalizing his plans for a trip to Columbia for a summit with Latin American leaders the Secret Service agents assigned to his security detail were busy too, scouting out the area, meeting with local security officials and hiring prostitutes to entertain them back in their hotel room.
We have all seen a campaign launched for a competitor that is just brilliant and out of the box creative. You beat yourself up about why you didn’t think of that first or what you will say to your client or boss when the campaign is mentioned. You start racking your brain trying to think of what you can come up with to top it…and you can’t come up with anything.
With multiple clients all wanting the next greatest PR strategy, it is hard to keep the creative juices flowing. Creativity doesn’t happen on demand and it usually happens in strange places, such as the shower or at the dry cleaners, when your mind is elsewhere. Continue reading →
One of the most fascinating things about social media is how businesses are inventing new ways to capitalize on its potential to meet unique objectives they set relevant to their own verticals.
Few thought prior to the explosion of this medium that using it to connect with communities would permeate so quickly to virtually every corner of the world. However, as with most new communication platforms that have evolved over the last century, some are slow to adopt for a number of reasons – be it lack of education, lack of resources, lack of perceived relevance or simply plain old ignorance. Continue reading →
Last week, Apple released its fourth quarter 2011 earnings, posting a profit of $13.06 billion on revenue of $46 billion. Earnings per share were $13.87, far exceeding analysts’ expectations of $10.08 per share. Fueled in large part by their stratospheric sales of the iPad and iPhone, Apple’s monstrous quarter brought bright smiles to shareholders but also started to illuminate the spotlight on a not so glamorous side of their business: outsourcing labor to China. Continue reading →
