None of us ever want to be unemployed. Unfortunately, the reality is that it happens. I’m one of those who had reality slap me in the face when I was let go from my job last month. Disappointing? Sure. But, it was also a perfect time to refine who I am and what I really want to do.
What did I do?
I spent the first few days developing a plan of action and started to strategize my next steps. Think you can’t do a SWOT analysis on yourself? WRONG! Take any public relations-centered term and you can put it to use in your job search. Here’s what I did in the first weeks of being unemployed. Continue reading →
When the Columbia Journalism Review and ProPublicaexamined the growing value of public relations and its relationship with journalism, the scope of the piece, and the reaction it received from the journalism community were fairly predictable. A rousing chorus of “PR has too much influence” over [fill in the blank] seemed to fill the comments of both CJR.org and ProPublica’s website.
This notion was further advanced in July when New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane explored the role of public relations professionals working with journalists in a blog post titled “PR Professionals: Bane or Boon?”
The underlying sentiment in both seems to be that as journalism continues to shed thousands of its craftsmen, while public relations grows rapidly — both in stature and the number of practitioners — there is an overt level of influence being exerted by the latter over the former. And the world is just bad because of that. Continue reading →
I’ve been getting out more lately. Out meeting clients and prospects at User Conferences and Trade Shows. Out making new contacts, engaging people in conversations and learning more about what makes customers and prospects tick within the vertical markets that we serve. I’ve been out “pressing the flesh.”
A few years back I was the PR Manager for the State of Maryland’s two 529 college savings plans. If you are unfamiliar with a 529 college savings plan, basically it’s a financial savings investment vehicle with special tax considerations and incentives, designed to encourage saving for children’s future college expenses. My job as the PR Manager for Maryland’s plans was to make sure that:
#1: the value of saving for future college expenses was top of mind for parents (and grandparents)
#2: Everyone understood exactly how Maryland’s two 529 college savings plans worked,
Recently, I got married to my beloved Laura. As newlyweds, life is great. But like any relationship, it’s a lot of work, a whole lot of give-and-take and, yes, it can be stressful at times.
Hmm … sounds a lot like managing a PR campaign. To continue PRBC’s theme of exploring five ways in which PR is like __________, I thought I’d address the five ways that PR campaigns are like getting married. Continue reading →
A brief note before we really get into today’s post – you may have noticed a trend in our posts since Monday – all the posts are lists of metaphors explaining why PR (or social media, metrics, analytics or some other aspect of the biz) is like something else. The great metaphor post – only we’re doing ’em in series. If you’d like to offer up your own contribution to the effort, drop me a line.
In the 2+ years I’ve gotten plenty of questions about how we “manage” to get the blog published every day, usually on time, and how things are scheduled, setup, arranged, enforced, etc. etc. Most of those secrets are in the vault with the KFC original recipe recipe, but it’s occurred to me, not infrequently, putting this show on the road every day is quite a bit like working in PR in general: Continue reading →
There is a school of thought that striking a balance between professional life and extracurricular activities allows you to work towards a healthy body to facilitate a healthy mind. Not an easy task as demands increase in our profession and we increasingly discover that in the fast paced world of PR, dedication, effort and real time expectations require us to seemingly be on the job 24/7. Continue reading →
In the coming and recently passed days we’ve seen a lot of different PR firms sending out stories and reports about remembering 9/11. While this type of report is fortunately a rarity, there will always be those few days where everyone stops to think about a devastation that happened to our nation. Along with 9/11 we remember Hurricane Katrina, Columbine, and the shootings at Virginia Tech among others. It is the job of the press to be sure that not only are these historic days not forgotten, but that they are remembered with the right amount of respect and nationalism. With that said, this is virtually the only thing the press needs to be doing during these tough times.
Although it may seem obvious, PR agencies still continue to make rookie mistakes when it comes to expressing their sorrow for the lives lost because of these tragedies. Whether you need a refresher on the basics or you are, in fact, a PR rookie, consider some of these necessities. Continue reading →
The other day I stepped on to the elevator with several other people at the office building where I work. We stood there for about 5 seconds waiting for the doors to close and when they didn’t, a man reached over and hit the “close door” button. The doors remained open. As everyone else waited patiently, this guy hit the button again and again and again for what seemed like 10 seconds until finally the doors closed. As I watched him initially frustrated by beating the button repeatedly to no avail, I began to think, “This has applications to PR via social media.”
Public relations, like many things in life, is 90 percent perspiration and 10 percent inspiration. Many people have a misconception of what we do (even our family). Writing is something that is a part of a PR pro’s daily hourly duty. PR isn’t about rubbing elbows with celebrities and throwing extravagant parties for clients. But, I’m speaking to the choir on this.
Any PR pro knows the importance of honing their writing skills. It’s a must. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be anywhere in the PR world. Not only do we have to craft the perfect pitch for media, we have to write compelling press releases and blog posts people find interesting.Continue reading →