Communications Conversations

Find me over at www.arikhanson.com

2009-07-21T18:11:00.001-07:00

Sorry folks, I switched blog platforms a while back. Want to make sure you're finding me over at www.arikhanson.com. And, if you're so inclined, drop me a note or comment and let me know what you think of the new design/theme. I'd appreciate your feedback.

In the meantime, thanks for reading. Hope to connect soon.

@arikhanson

arik.hanson@gmail.com

A happy ending to this Tweet-a-thon story

2009-05-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

The following is a guest post from my PR colleague and good friend, Scott Hepburn. If you'll recall, a number of folks participated in a tweet-a-thon a few weeks back in hopes of generating job leads for Scott and Sonny Gill--two eligible "free agents" at the time.

While I know Sonny is still looking (and getting closer) for a new gig, I'm happy to report that Scott has some fantastic news to share with you all--the folks that played such a crucial role in this powerful story. Before I blurt it out myself, I'll let Scott take the stage...

“Jerry Maguire, my agent. You’re my ambassador of Quan.”

Arik Hanson is MY ambassador of Quan.

Just one month ago, Arik called on you, his readers, to join him in Tweeting me into a new gig. And you responded. In overwhelming, breath-taking, faith-affirming fashion, you responded. Hundreds of retweets. Dozens of leads. Countless inquiries. And momentum.

It seems only fitting that I would circle back to Arik’s blog to announce that my free agency. This week I joined Ritz Marketing in Charlotte to lead their social media and emerging media team.

I’m excited to join one of Charlotte’s top five agencies. Ritz Marketing clients include the Detroit Area Honda Dealers Association, Penske Automotive Group’s Central Zone Division, McAlister’s Deli’s largest franchisee, and dozens of others.

My role at Ritz Marketing will be part teacher, part navigator, part point guard and part devil’s advocate. Many of the questions we’ve debated on the Media Emerging blog are questions Ritz Marketing clients are asking. My advice to them will be to adhere to the wisdom of Dicky Fox: “The key to this business is personal relationships.”

Which brings me to you.

You, the generous members of Arik’s community who had my back when I was looking for my feet.

You, the PR, marketing and social media groundbreakers who teach me something new every day.

You, the forward-thinkers who are coaxing, prodding and leading your companies toward the future of communication.

Thank you for your support, guidance, leads, offers, and generosity. Though we may yet be strangers, you treated me as a brother, and for that, my door is always open to you.

If you’re headed to BlogPotomac, find me. Let’s connect. You’ll find me with my agent, Arik Hanson.

Why customer experience is still word-of-mouth's best friend

2009-05-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

As you may know, I spent a few days this past weekend down in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Of course, we spent a fair amount of time lying on the beach. But one of our favorite activities while we're on St. John (our favorite island, in case you're wondering) is Woody's "World-Famous" Happy Hour. Yes, world famous.

On an island that's known for outrageously high prices on everything from gas to orange juice, Woody's offers $1 beers and well drinks from 3-6 every day. Every day. What's more, they offer an electric, college-like atmosphere you simply can't find anywhere on St. John OR St. Thomas.

Quite simply, it's been a staple of all our trips to St. John. And we tell anybody who will listen to go there, too.

Why do we refer so many folk to this hole-in-the-wall bar? We have yet to have a bad experience. In fact, it's often the most fun we have on our trips. We sit at the bar, chatting with the bartenders and locals. Wait staff pass us shot glasses with tastes of their frozen concoctions. And they pump in great music throughout happy hour. The place just has a vibe. For us, it's all about the unique experience Woody's offers. Heck, I even bought a t-shirt (the true sign of an exceptional experience).

Keep in mind, Woody's isn't on Twitter. They don't have a Facebook page. They haven't presented me with any marketing materials. And I haven't talked to a single salesperson or PR rep (although I do try to chat with one of the owners when I'm there).

What's the lesson for brands here? It's all about the experience. Without an exceptional experience, all the social media, PR and marketing efforts in the world won't mean a thing.

In this case, Woody's nails it. The bartenders and wait staff are incredibly efficient (I always have at least one drink in my hand at all times), friendly and funny. The drinks (i.e. "products) are always cold and delicious. Heck, they even have a "drive up" window where you can grab a drink "on the go" as you're passing by. They also have all sorts of sports and island memorabilia inside to check out. And the food ain't half bad either (conch fritters anyone?). It's a total experience--every sense is satisfied.

Now, should Woody's be engaging me to further their brand? Probably. Wouldn't take much really. But, I'm guessing in this case, they're probably not looking to open up multiple branches across the Caribbean. Regardless, they've developed a unique product and service that promotes itself. There's something to be learned from that simple fact.

But most brands could learn a lot from Woody's. Focus on your product or service. Strive to provide an experience that's so out-of-this-world that your customers will leave raving. And work every day to hone that experience so it's always improving. Your brand does all this and it will make marketing and PR's job all that much easier.

Enough about Woody's--what's your organization doing to create exceptional products and services for your customers?

Shhh…I’m going to let you in on a secret

2009-05-12T06:24:00.000-07:00

Come closer, a little closer, ok there. Here goes- PR isn’t rocket science. There, I said it and I’m proud of it. Over the years, this thought has come to me many times when talking with other professionals I respect deeply. It usually comes up when chuckling about some huge embarrassing PR gaffe we hear about that leaves you just scratching your head wondering “why would they do that?”

Now, I want to be clear that I’m not saying that all the wonderful PR people I know aren’t talented, brilliant, and dedicated professionals in the truest sense of the word. But when it comes down to it, our goals often rely on taking a message (from our employer, a client, our own) and finding a way to connect it to an audience that we want to reach and engage. Not rocket science.

I wish it were a magic formula that only a few people had cracked and I was a member of that exclusive club, but much of what we try to do boils down to understanding the workings of the amazing human brain. PR people need to spend time understanding what motivates people to take the action we want or need them to take. The challenge (and this is where we can actually add a lot of value and earn our keep) is to get past yourself and your organizations’ collective thoughts of “this is the greatest piece of news ever- everyone will want to know this” and move to a view of your audience who is thinking “why in the world do I need this info and how does it fit in my life?”

There’s a simple tip that I learned from a great mentor—“So what.” That’s it, from the audience perspective I want to be able to give them a good answer when they ask “so what.” I need to deliver the important part of my communications in a clear, simple manner that gives them a personal answer to that question and gives them a motivation to spend their time and remain connected with what I’m saying.

Now, in an era of more communication channels than ever before, how does this concept change? Not that much. When looking at how to engage customers or supporters via social media or Web 2.0 the concept remains the same though the method of engagement changes dramatically as we have a chance to connect more directly with our audience in real-time. Before creating a massive SM campaign that hinges on a new promotion, adding dedicated SM staff, or building a new Web site with enhanced functionality think first about how you can add value to your audience.

Think about some basics that drive behavior:

· What does your audience already know?
What is their experience which will shape how they interpret your message? Think about things like history with your brand/competitors as well as regional or cultural elements.

· What do you want them to do?
You’d better get this sorted out in a very clear way before engaging in the SM space. Failures in this area can be found everywhere....like when you see five updates a day from someone on Twitter that only includes when they got up and what they’ve eaten all day. If this is the best you can do, please don’t. You’ll only hurt your reputation if you hop online and haven’t thought this question through and figured out how you can actually provide people with a way to engage in a manner that’s good for them and drives your goals.

· How is it personal to them?
Put yourself in their shoes and answer my favorite question: So what? Run your information through this screen and see if you have a good answer to what you’re adding in their lives. This element is especially true in the social media space. The most successful individuals and organizations online get this point and focus on it consistently. The advances in social media aren’t realized by just pushing content out in one more channel but by adding value to people online in an honest way right where they’re at in their lives. It’s the potential for personal connections that make SM so valuable. However, you need to realize that it can’t just be about your info but rather what about your interests matches those of your audience.

If you’d ever like to talk more about the simple premise of communications (the devil is always in the details) just let me know. I would love to hear from you. It isn’t rocket science but it sure can be fun.

@dfolkens

Before Participation, Build a Foundation

2009-05-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

There are dozens of scenarios for why you may consider incorporating social applications into your latest communications plan. Maybe you're responsible for bringing dynamic brand marketing ideas to life. Or perhaps you're charged with facilitating a response to a situation with potential impact on reputation.

No matter what your objective, keep in mind that participating with social tools is an ongoing and holistic strategy in itself, effecting multiple communication channels and disciplines within an organization.

Therefore, the foundation for participation needs to be built before tactical use is proposed. It's important to step back, lay the groundwork and, for example:

1) Collaborate across internal and external disciplines to review the business goals and build a plan for a 360 approach
2) Set monitoring processes to listen to relevant conversations and discover influencers
3) Review how various stakeholders are using applications and determine which channels have potential for the greatest impact
4) Develop a plan for engaging and informative participation
5) Incorporate measures for continuous evaluation and refinement

A sound strategy for participation will ultimately enable exceptional execution. How will you build a foundation for your next communications plan?

Arik, thanks for inviting me to guest post. I had a blast "holding down the fort" and hope you had a wonderful vacation. @jillianf

Does Community lead to Commerce?

2009-05-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Image by jtyerse via Flickr

Before Arik departed for turquoise waters, he posted “Is Social Media Really About Me?” Consensus from comments to that post in my rough observation revolved around sharing, collaboration and making connections. We can all agree that some ego is likely involved. Right?

For me, it is affirming when I get retweeted, @replies, or blog comments. It feels great to think that a post I have written compels someone to take time to respond – even in disagreement. I like feeling the connection. I am uplifted by feeling I participated in a conversation that taught me and others something new.

Unfortunately, most businesses need to believe something more valuable than an ego boost or “good collaboration” is on the other side of a journey into social media participation. The famous ROI question keeps getting raised one way or another. I usually run in to this question from business leaders who are still trying to understand online social spaces and their place, if any, within the operations of their organization. I heard it this week:

“How do we monetize Twitter?”

“How can we make money using social media? Nobody seems able to answer that.”

This feels like one of the most frequent questions asked with the widest range of answers. What is the ROI in social media? To me, the answer is in the verbiage. “How can we make money USING social media?” “Using” needs to be replaced with “participating.”

Businesses have used mass media. They use accountants. They use raw materials. Social media is not for use. It is for participation. Commerce, as a motivation for community, can easily lead to contrived interaction, superficial relationships and limited desire for customers and employees to engage.

I am driven to explain to these organization leaders that authentic/human participation in social media leads to real relationships, passionate employees, and engaged customers. Lack of participation, strategy, and tactics lead to issues like the recent Domino's debacle on YouTube or a loss of connection with the millions of consumers/employees who have come to expect a more personal relationship with brands.

In which camp do you fall? Should social media participation and engagement be measured against expenses and sales? Are you one that believes social media can be statistically judged?

Or are you of the belief that participation is about relationships, connections, collaboration, and sharing?

Can it be both?

Thanks you, Arik, for inviting me to guest post. It is an honor to try and fill in for you. I hope your readers enjoy the post. Cheers, All. @camgross

What's old is new again

2009-05-07T05:31:00.000-07:00

First off, thanks to Arik for the opportunity to write on his turf. I'm glad to chip in (five years without a vacation?!), and I hope my little essay below doesn't disappoint.

Let me begin with a ray of hope.

I hope what I'm about to say is nothing more than preaching to the choir. I hope this writing is simply helpful reinforcement of a concept you're familiar with.

If not, don't worry. We're hear to discuss and learn, not to judge or scold. I come in peace!

Here's the bottom line: This newfangled "PR 2.0" stuff we're all hearing about everywhere we turn these days is newfangled only on the surface.

Wild, huh?

Yes, helping your colleagues or your clients understand Twitter and its 140-character limit is new. Dealing with the intricacies of blog-comment moderation policies is new. Pitching people (bloggers) who are a lot more likely to publicly shame, rightly or wrongly, PR folks who rub them the wrong way is new.

But of course:

Writing concisely -- and well -- is not new. Dealing with critics is not new. Working hard to make sure your time spent pitching stories is meaningful and fruitful is not new.

The platforms, tools and concepts we cluster under the umbrella of "social media" have not changed the core of what PR practitioners do. Not one bit.

We have a lot of new tools and lingo and a lot more access to information than we had collectively been accustomed to -- a lot of stuff that's upsetting what had become a comfortable, familiar way of working -- this era of "PR 2.0" is actually just a quick, rough return to what PR always should have been.

Yes, bloggers are a lot more likely to publicly ridicule the sender of an off-target e-mail, but is fear of public shaming really your strongest motivation for making on-target pitches? Yes, Twitter and Facebook might seem like utterly foreign territory at times, but wasn't there a time when CD-ROMs were blowing people's minds?

It's like Arik wrote in his recent post: PR is a relationship business. Always has been, always will be. Sure, you can get a story placed working with a reporter you've never even heard of, but in the long run, relationships make the work easier. And recently we've seen a clear return to public relations -- not just media relations. Working with bloggers might closely resemble working with magazine reporters, but what about that active twitterer who's constantly talking about your company's products? Or the Facebook wall-post writer who's always keeping you on your toes? Media relations? Hardly. Public relations? Damn straight.

So while it's clear that those of us on the leading edge of Web-savvy PR are quickly becoming pseudo-IT pros almost as much as we're pseudo-journalists, the core of PR is still exactly the same: working to establish credibility and foster conversations between organizations and their interested publics. Online or off.

Photo courtesy of Krista76 on Flickr

I'm off to the islands...but I'm leaving you in good hands

2009-05-06T05:33:00.001-07:00

It's been 5 years. 5 FRIGGIN YEARS since I've been on vacation. So cut me some slack. I'm due. Yes, as of about 4 p.m. tomorrow, I'll be sitting on that beach right over there (see at right) sipping something with a large amount of rum in it without a care in the world. And for the first time in a long time, I'm unplugging. Really unplugging. But, I didn't want to leave you high and dry either.

So I've asked some folks and colleagues who I think will bring some very interesting perspectives to the table to blog in my absence.

For me--and the market within which I work--it's also a great way to highlight and showcase some of the great voices and smart PR and social media pros we have right here in Minneapolis. It really is a tremendous PR and digital community.

So, for the next six days, you're going to hear from:

* Mike Keliher, customer relationship manager at Fast Horse. Mike recently joined the creative consumer marketing team at Fast Horse in Minneapolis after nearly five years honing his PR and online communication skills with Albert Maruggi at Provident Partners. At Fast Horse, he spends much of his time helping clients with online communication strategy and chips on everything from proofreading to media planning to creative brainstorming.

* Cam Gross, Best Buy. Cam's background comes from a passion for communications, marketing and advertising. Most recently, he has worked with larger enterprises on systems and cultural integration of social communication tools that connect employees with vendors and with each other.

* Jillian Froelich, senior associate and social media co-chair at Carmichael Lynch Spong, combines a passion for public relations strategy with concentrations in digital engagement and business development to produce award-winning work on behalf of clients. She was named a finalist for PRWeek’s national “Young PR Professional of the Year” honor in both 2008 and 2009.

* David Folkens, communications director, MN AIDS Project, is a strategic communicator that has broad experience working within a variety of industries over the last decade with an emphasis on health care. He previously worked for the Minneapolis office of Fleishman-Hillard on both healthcare and technology accounts, at Medtronic where he served as manager of corporate public and media relations, and at specialty pharmaceutical company Orphan Medical, Inc. where he was responsible for public relations outreach, investor/analyst relations, Web development, and internal communications.

I hope you enjoy these new voices. I know I have enjoyed getting to know them all better these past few years. Now, off to suck down a few Coronas, relax and unplug for 120 hours...

Is social media really all about me?

2009-05-05T05:51:00.001-07:00

I've been trying to formulate this thought for the last week or so, but I think I'll just come right out and ask:

Is social media really all about me?

Isn't that why we're here? Engaging in these tools is a way for us to search for a little validation. Talk about ourselves, our projects and our content (read: blog posts). Even brag a little. Heck, the tools themselves ask for it. "What are you doing?" is the trademark Twitter phrase.

Yes, it's an ego-driven system. But lately, I've noticed it's getting a little obnoxious.

Just the little things really. People hanging on and clinging to perceived social media "rock stars" at local events. Social media groupies? Make no mistake about it, they exist. Even folks on Twitter blatantly promoting themselves, their work and their products. If I want a cold call, I have at least three salespeople interrupting my family dinner and coming to my front door every week. I don't need to here it out here, too.

Again, my question: Is social media really all about me?

Or, is it about sharing? Is it about connecting with people you would have never had the chance to connect with before? Or is it about finding new and different ways to collaborate with folks from across the world in real-time?

I know there's a little "me" involved in all of this. Heck, I promote my blog posts out on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all the time. But my feeling is there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it. And lately, I've just seen way too many people/brands going about it the wrong way. And that leaves me feeling a little disappointed, to be honest.

There--I finally got that off my chest. What do you think? Is social media all about me?

Or, is it really about "us?"

My Social Media MBA

2009-05-04T06:12:00.001-07:00

For many, an MBA is a symbol of power. Prestige. Even wealth. You won't meet many CMOs who don't have their MBA. There's no question how much time and effort it requires. No second-guessing the commitment and smarts it takes to complete something like that. No raising concerns over its value in the marketing and PR fields. Many higher-level opportunities in marketing and communications now require a MBA.

But what happens, now, as paradigms and models continue to shift? Do you really need an advanced academic degree to pursue a senior-level marketing, PR or social media role?

You know what I think? I've got your social media MBA right here.

My instructors? Chris Brogan. Amber Naslund. Jason Falls. Todd Defren. Danny Brown. Allan Schoenberg. Beth Harte. Scott Hepburn. Connie Bensen. And a host of others.

My required reading: Shannon Paul's Very Official Blog. Mack Collier's Viral Garden. Lisa Hoffmann's New Media Lisa blog. Shonali Burke's Waxing Unlyrical blog. Dave Fleet's blog. And David Mullen's Communications Catalyst blog. And many, many more (my new favorite required reading: Mengel's Musings by Amy Mengel)

My syllabus? Whatever is piquing my interest that particular day. Recent case studies. New e-books. Slide decks from recent conferences like SXSW or BlogPotomac. The choice is mine. I drive the cirriculum.

My homework? My blog. Every tweet I send. My 1 a.m. brainstorming sessions. Guest posts on other blogs. Uploading videos via Viddler. Trying different tools out (For me, it's been Seesmic Desktop and Netvibes)

Here's the great part: It's a lifelong process. It's not relegated to four years. Heck it's not relegated to the next 10 years. It's on my own time. My own schedule. And I get to apply my learnings in real time and test my ideas. It's the greatest kind of learning because it allows me to learn, implement, fail, dust myself off and try again.

It's been a little over a year since I started my MBA, but it's been one of the best year's of my professional life. It's been full of learning new skills, understanding new tools and forms of communication and best of all, you. My community. Without you, none of this is possible.

Enough about me. What classes are you taking in your social media MBA program? Who are your instructors? I'd love to hear your faves.

Tweets of the Week--May 1

2009-04-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

* ABC always be connecting; always be communicating; allways be (empowering) community @thomasknoll

* Control in social media is like holding water - the tighter you grab, the less you hold @davefleet

* Trend: Social Media Strategists are leaving corporate jobs and going to agencies to lead digital and social. @jowyang

* Meaningful metrics are often reasonably likely to create sales, loyalty, and brand evangelism #smcbham @mackcollier

* Relationships have always been the cornerstone of biz; however, can virtual exchanges create value that lead to "real" relationships? #smgps @timjackson

* Pretending the negative side of the conversation doesn't exist isn't beneficial. Acknowledging it and responding is. #blogchat @timjahn

* I think we marketing/pr types overemphasize our own role sometimes. We have A role, not THE role #blogchat @shannonpaul

* Your web site is a living, breathing part of your brand. It should never be "done". It should never be "under construction" @charliecurve

* If some1 says "I have software to get 1'000's of Twitter followers", just reply: "So have I - it's called conversation" @dannybrown

* Successful marketing can't be influenced by stockholders and quarterly reports. There needs to be a separation of church & state. @lenkendall

* Social Media Marketers: if ur username looks like shortwave radio operator's callsign it shows u were late to the game. @dannybrown

* "Blog like you're talking to a friend." Be conversational with your writing - people appreciate it and will relate with you more. @researchgoddess

Is PR really in the relationship business?

2009-04-29T19:33:00.000-07:00

First, I need to give a huge hat tip to Jay Baer and Shannon Paul for the title and idea for this post. It’s based on a conversation Jay had with Shannon last week online. During that back-and-forth, Jay asked some very insightful questions (or in this case, statements). One of my favorites: “I’d argue that many PR folks haven’t been in the relationship business, they’ve been in the distribution business.” Shannon’s response (which I thought was spot on) “Yes! And herein lies the rub. In many ways, social media is a return to origins of PR. More human, less mechanized.”

As she does so often, Shannon articulated perfectly—and succinctly—the crux of the issue (and challenge) for many PR pros. You see, social media is really a throwback of sorts. Back to an era where PR was based on relationships. Honest to goodness, personal relationships. Oh sure, relationships are a big part of PR, but I’m talking about genuine get-to-know-you-type-stuff here. Not shotgun-style pitches to journalists that often don’t have the time or inclination to even read the email.

So often in PR, relationships do play a big role. But, it’s somtimes in the context of relationships with media members and outlets. In the traditional model, that’s what’s important. The belief: As a PR pro, your relationships with reporters will lead to more stories for clients. True? It’s debatable. But here’s the question: Shouldn’t the real relationships be taking place with the actual customer?

Stew on that for a minute.

The other piece at play here is the shift from the traditional command and control model of PR to one that’s more nuanced. More informal. And certainly more conversational and personal. It’s about having one-to-one relationships with your customers. It’s about talking to customers like human beings—not “targets”, “clients” or “key stakeholders.” And it’s about listening. Really listening to your customers. And learning and developing products and services to meet their needs.

Back to relationships.

Shouldn’t we, as PR pros, be focusing our time and energies on helping organizations develop more personal relationships with customers—not media members? Yes, traditional media outlets are still hugely important. No one’s arguing that point. All I’m saying is the traditional channels are just one piece to the puzzle now. New channels offer new opportunity to build direct, one-to-one relationships with customers.

Put it this way: What if you had two choices. Option A: Sit down to dinner with your customer, spend two hours talking about why he or she loves your brand/what he or she doesn’t love about it, pay your check, go home and think about ways to improve your products and services. Option B: Talk with a third-party who then sits down with your customer, and talks about your brand for two hours over crab cakes and martinis. Doesn’t option A sound MUCH more appealing? More personal. No third party. And at the end of the day, you now have a relationship with your customer.

PR pros, I ask you: What are you doing to build stronger relationships with your customers TODAY?

The Twitter "IT" list

2009-04-28T08:30:00.001-07:00

For a moment, playback to last November. Life was a lot different. We just voted in a new president. Florida had not won it's second college football national championship in three years yet. And the economy was in the tank. OK, maybe not *everything* has changed.

Life was a lot different in the world of social media, too. For those of us who live and breathe in this space, we know it operates at a whole new speed. So, I thought we'd have a little fun with this and look at some of the trends and changes we've witnessed in the last six months:

Social Media Rock Star

November--Chris Brogan (still a rock star, by the way--always will be)

April--Amber Naslund (too many to name, but Amber's definitely a star of stars)

Ready to knock the door down

November--Shannon Paul (let's face it, she's knocked the door down, barged on through and is on to the next room already)

April--David Mullen (big things ahead for this fella--especially given his announcement yesterday)

Twitter desktop app

November--Tweetdeck

April--Seesmic Desktop

Overused Social media buzz-phrase

November--Web 2.0

April--Conversation (maybe I need to change the title of this blog)

Fastest growing social network

November--Facebook

April--Twitter (1,300% growth year over year)

Social networks used for social good

November--David Armano helping a homeless mother of 3 (even though it was really in January)

April--Danny Brown's 12for12K/Chris Brogan shaving his head for charity

Most over-hyped trend

November--Parents joining Facebook

April--Celebrities joining Twitter

Social media best practice

November--Transparency

April--Listen, then engage

Most popular Twitter celebrity

November: Shaq

April: Ashton Kutcher

Twitter's Sweetheart (full disclosure: Scott Hepburn's phrase, not mine)

November: Rachel Kay (A soft spot in my heart for Rachel)

April: Lisa Hoffmann (I couldn't resist, Lisa!)

Social Media Darlings

November: Comcast (Frank and crew are still rocking it)

April: Southwest Airlines (Gotta give huge love to my SWA friends for flying me to BlogPotomac in June!)

Social Media Phenomenon

November: HARO (still going strong)

April: Twitter chats (Journchat, blogchat, gno, smbiz, etc)

What categories would you add? What did I miss?

Tweets of the week

2009-04-24T05:34:00.001-07:00

Over the course of a week, we see plenty of RTs and information passed along from person to person across the Twitterverse. Great blog posts, articles and other information are passed along and we all benefit from sharing.

But, every week, due to the sheer volume of tweets, we sometimes miss out on the insightful and sometimes controversial tweets that start meaningful and interesting conversations around topics in PR, marketing and social networks.

So, each week I will attempt to capture what, in my opinion, were the "tweets of the week"--hope you'll do your part in helping me fill in what I've missed. Take a look below and let me know what you think. Who knows, maybe these tweets will restart new conversations with folks who may not have seen these pearls of wisdom earlier in the week:

* People of earth, Twitter is what YOU make of it. Opt in. Create your own experience and the hell with the rest.--@ambercadabra

* I'm still very much a PR girl. I think the "what it takes" has changed in PR and some refuse to evolve.--@shannonpaul

* Are you too much of an "A-lister" or too important and "busy" to respond to someone who responds to your tweet? Then why are you tweeting?--@marc_meyer

* My primary objective in any meeting is to end the meeting.--@badbanana

* The best writers, and hence the best bloggers, develop their own voice, their own tenor, their own POV. --@dpolitis

* Sponsored content is the future of advertising because it binds the ad to the consumption of media. Higher CTRs. Better ROI. --@tedmurphy

* Look at the quality of content and interaction on the topic. Ask yourself--Would you read it? --@dfolkens

* A credible blogger is one who makes a mistake and still shows up tomorrow. --@scotthepburn

* If you don't offer option of comments, you're not listening. If ur not listening, ur not in the game.--@dannybrown

* Social Media is the new zeitgeist.--@tdefren

* Never make someone a priority if they consider you an option.--@researchgoddess

* The people are the rock stars. the rockstars work to build a rock star brand.--@mattceni

* Blogging takes love. If you don't love your blog don't start the relationship in the first place--@dannybrown

* Twitter is like any relationship. You get out of it what you put into it.--@benbrugler

* Idea for corp. blogs. Get a customer that blogs to guest post. Offer the customer a voice and improve your service thru that.--@dannybrown

* Check your ego: There's not much difference between "A-List" and just "a list--@scotthepburn

What were your favorite tweets of the week?

PR Rock Stars: A Conversation with Rick Mahn

2009-04-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Little known fact: The Twin Cities has a tremendously robust interactive/social media market. I know we're fly-over country and all, but we have one heck of a digital community. Over the last year, the community has grown immensely stronger due to the good work of PR Rock Star Rick Mahn.

As the founder of Social Media Breakfast-Twin Cities, I'm guessing Rick has shook hands, collaborated or chatted with just about every pro who has dabbled in the social media space across the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. So, how does he qualify as a PR Rock Star? Isn't social media a part of the marketing and communications mix now? Rick's new role as social media strategist at Land 'O Lakes gives him instant credibility--and coupled with his SMB work and his general knowledge in the social media arena, he's more than deserving. Want to hear more? Let's turn this bad-boy loose...

You started Social Media Breakfast here in the Twin Cities early in 2008. Tell me a little about that experience and how’s it’s changed your outlook and career trajectory?

Let’s see… the idea of SMB, as you may know, was created by Bryan Person out in Boston in Q4 2007 if I remember right. I was watching all these great folks out in Boston wishing we had something similar here in the Twin Cities. He was able to gather so many great folks who I was following on blogs and Twitter at the time, and it really looked like a great idea.
So I email Bryan one day in early January 2008 and asked what he did to pull it together, and if he knew of anyone working on doing something similar in Minneapolis. When he simply said “why don’t you”, it was kind of an awakening of sorts.

Since then, I’ve taken on the approach of an entrepreneur. I apply that perspective to every aspect of my career, and it’s changed how a person approaches things.

You’re currently the chief Social Media Strategist for Land ‘O Lakes right here in Minneapolis. You took a little different path to that position than others—talk about your non-traditional path and how it has helped you do your job effectively.

I suppose in non-traditional, you mean “non-marketing/pr”? Yeah, I’m an old “IT” guy who just got tired of maintaining the technology part of the equation. Though, I do know of a couple of folks in the social media sphere that have similar roots, and I think it’s a valid background for being a social computing advocate.

After doing a lot of tech consulting in the ‘90s, I wound up working at Michael Foods in Minnetonka, MN for a decade. It was a great experience with great people – I learned tons of things about many aspects of the business because of the technology analyst work I did there. This was indispensible experience that I’m grateful to have.

Sufice it to say, after having an epiphany at a tech conference in Orlando in April 2007, I walked away from one of the best jobs I’d had in my career to that date. The future beckoned, and I wanted to find out what that was.

Coming out of IT with the diverse technical, management, and analytical skills that I have has really been the edge for me. It’s allowed me to watch past and current trends, and forecast what direction things are going.

The other part was blogging. I started blogging in 2004 on MSN Spaces and learn more about what transparency and authenticity were all about in the blogosphere. These also changed the way I viewed each new opportunity as I left corporate life in 2007.

Your position at Land O’ Lakes is very similar to what most would term a “community manager” position. With more organizations considering these types of positions and more candidates vying for these roles, what three tips would you offer up to those who are pursuing these types of positions?

Before you can get to the community manager part, a company has to figure out it’s strategy. That’s where I’ve been at for some time. The strategy part – it’s because of the IT geeky part of me that I tend to take a look at the bigger picture. So what I’m doing at Land O’Lakes is social media strategy.

There sure are more companies looking to fill both these types of needs, and they need help, just in figuring out what they need to figure out. That’s something that folks need to think about as they look to take on one of these positions.

Three tips:

1 – Communication skills. These skills are very necessary for any candidate in a social position. Knowing how to interact with public and management (and the workforce) is very important to success. You need to listen, moderate, interpret and communicate back. Not easy in some cases.

2 – Writing. As a community manager, writing is a key component. While it’s something I struggle with every day (I’m a techy geek remember), its not hard to do and gets easier with practice.

3 – Business, management, or marketing experience. It could be one of these, or a combination of the three. You need to understand the business you speak for. You need to be able to manage time and resources – kind of like a lot of mini-projects. Finally, everything you do is a version of marketing, whether internal or external. It goes back to communications skills.

You’re also an active blogger at www.rickmahn.com. How do you drum up new ideas for your blog and keep content fresh?

Blogging is a tough gig. Topics come and go, and I mean that sometimes I can sit down and come up with 100 ideas, and others I can’t seem to think of one. Writing is the other hard part – you always think “well everyone knows that!” The reality is that everyone doesn’t know that, and while you can come up with some great content, it’s the readers that really add value.

To come up with new ideas, I keep up with what’s going on online as much as possible. Talking with friends and associates working in social media, or in business, or in a different industry helps me keep a broad perspective. Sometimes I’ll just jump into the current meme going through the blogosphere because I have an opinion to add.

You’re as plugged in to the national social media scene as anyone in the Twin Cities. Who are your five “must follows” on Twitter and three blogs you just have to read each week?

Hmm, for Twitter it would have to be: Scott Monty at Ford, Becky McCray (an associate from a business advisors group), Chris Brogan, Liz Strauss (founder of SOBCon), and Keith Burtis of Best Buy.

For blogs it's gotta be: Jeremiah Owyang, Jason Falls, and (again) Chris Brogan. These folks are the best minds in social media today, and I’m glad to have met most of them. The other thing is that they are just real people – no different than anyone else trying to advance in this space. They just got here a little earlier than the rest of us.

Who do we pitch to when there's no one left to pitch to?

2009-04-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

Had an interesting, albeit short conversation with my friend and PR colleague, Ryan Mathre, on the golf course the other day. His question: "Who will we pitch to when there's no one left to pitch to?"

Of course, this question is based on the premise that the traditional media channels as we know them are slipping away. Newspapers are shuttering their doors. Others are laying off staff or offering furloughs. One way or another, the traditional newspaper model as we know it today will change. Eventually.

So, then what? Basically, that was Ryan's question.

My thought: Organizations will simply do what they've done for years--just in a different way. They'll tell their story. Only in the future, with new media channels in place and with people consuming news and information in different ways, organizations will have the opportunity to tell their stories directly to their customers. Heck, some are doing it now.

Look at the strategy Domino's employed last week in addressing its crisis. Sure, they most likely issued a news release with their official response in an effort to tell their story through traditional media channels. But, they also recorded Patrick Doyle, CEO, telling their story firsthand to customers and key stakeholders on YouTube in a more human, visceral way. Domino's didn't pitch anyone. Didn't pick up a phone. Didn't send an email. They simply produced a video, posted it to YouTube and hit "upload." And boom--their message is instantly available to millions of potential Domino's customers and influencers.

The game is changing. And right now, we're in this limbo state. Traditional media channels are very much still in play. Think the New York Times or CNN has no clout? Better think again. But, new media channels are offering organizations a very different way to tell their story. Sometimes it's direct-to-consumers (YouTube videos) other times it's more indirect (monitoring and commenting on key blogs in your niche market).

What do you think? What will happen when we don't have anyone to pitch to?

It's all about the numbers, right? RIGHT?

2009-04-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

All this talk about Ashton Kutcher the last few days trying to "buy" his way to a million followers (looks like he will get his wish today) on Twitter got me thinking: Isn't he right? Isn't it really all about the numbers?

Stay with me for a minute.

As PR pros and marketers, it's been beaten into our brain from day one. ROI. Results. Measures. All based on numbers. Dollar figures. Counts.

Shouldn't we bake those same measures and counts into the mix when integrating social media tools into our marketing and communications plans?

Shouldn't number of followers on Twitter matter? Number of RTs? Number of friends on Facebook? Number of comments on your blog? At the end of the day, as you counsel your clients, don't you need real numbers to demonstrate results and prove that you're moving the needle?

Or, is social media different?

Is it more about relationships--not numbers? Community--not ROI? Conversations--not sales?

In reality, it's a combo platter. Numbers certainly matter. Whether it's number of comments on a blog, number of RTs on Twitter or sales tied to engagement in social networks. It's not the end-all-be-all. But it definitely has a place.

On the flip side, relationships, community and conversations play a big part, too. Obviously. After all, isn't that why most of us are here? We're either interacting with each other or helping the brands we represent interact with their customers. In the process, we're building strong communities. Fostering relationships. And engaging in meaningful conversations every day. All to help build stronger brands.

Tell me--what do you think? Is engagement in social networks all about the numbers?

Tweet-A-Thon 2009: Make a difference for Two PR Rock Stars

2009-04-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

You've all read the headlines. Company lays off 400. Unemployment continues to rise. No end in sight. It's depressing, right?

Over the last few months, like many, I've watched helplessly as good friends have lost their jobs unexpectedly. I always lend my sympathy and tell them I'll help in any way I can. But it rarely goes any further than that.

That all ends today.

I'm taking a stand. Enough is enough. I can make a difference. One person's voice and actions are a powerful thing. Just ask David Armano,

who helped raise more than $16,ooo for a homeless mother of three back in January. So, here's what I'm doing--with the help of an army of others including Mack Collier, Lisa Hoffmann and Amy Mengel.

I'm hosting a "Tweet-A-Thon" today for two good friends: Sonny Gill and Scott Hepburn. Two guys who are "free agents" out on the market. How this is possible, I still have no idea. Sonny and Scott are two of the most talented writers and creative idea guys around. Any company would be lucky to have them.

From 9 am to 5 pm CST today, I--along with a slew of others--will be tweeting about Scott and Sonny incessantly. Our hope? That we can drum up a few jobs leads, opportunities and even a few folks for them to chat with in hopes of landing a new gig soon.

Will this make a difference? I don't know. But, the point is, they are friends in need and we are going to take this opportunity to make a difference for these two rock stars.

Now, I know there are hundreds upon thousands of folks out there looking for jobs. Why help these two and not the others? Because I can make a difference for Sonny and Scott--today. As of 9 am, I'm focused on those two gentleman. After we get them squared away, we'll worry about the rest.

Join me in helping Scott and Sonny today. Share job opportunities or leads you believe might be a good fit for Scott and Sonny by leaving a comment below. If you're uncomfortable sharing publicly, send me an email at arik.hanson@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter and I'll pass the information along to Scott and Sonny.

Thank you--this is your chance to make a difference for two incredibly talented guys today. Let's make it happen.

Twin Cities PR/communications pros on Twitter

2009-04-08T18:27:00.000-07:00

Below you'll find an updated list of Twin Cities communicators online (Twitter and blogs). There were a number of updates this month, including more than 20 new PR pros from across the Twin Cities.

Again, standard disclaimer: This is by no means meant to be an end-all-be-all list. It's a work-in-progress and a resource for us all. So please, if you know someone I've missed, please leave a comment below and I'll add their name, Twitter handle and/or blog to the list. My plan is to update this list and re-publish every month so we have a definitive, running online catalog of all Minnesota PR/communications blogs and Twittizens.

Blogs

www.beehivepr.biz (Waxings--authored by various Beehive staffers)
www.mnprblog.com
www.samerowdycrowd.wordpress.com
www.marketingpie.risdall.com (authored by various RMPR staffers)
www.dailyaxioms.com (authored by Tim Otis and other Axiom staff)
www.fasthorseinc.com (authored by various FH staffers)
www.providentpartners.net.blog (authored by Albert Marruggi)
www.toprankblog.com (authored by Lee Odden)
www.conniebensen.com (authored by Connie Bensen)
www.getfreshminds.com (authored by Katie Konrath)
www.socialstudiesblog.com (Shandwick PR/social medial blog)
www.providentpartners.net/blog/ (authored by Albert Marruggi and Mike Keliher at Provident Partners)
http://abovethebuzz.wordpress.com (Sterling Cross blog)
http://prmoxie.wordpress.com (Sterling Cross blog)
http://mediapirate.wordpress.com (Sterling Cross blog)
http://e-strategyblog.com/ (blog by David Erickson)
http://social-media-university-global.org/ (authored by Lee Aase)
http://prchickspov.blogspot.com/ (authored by Heather Schwartz)
http://theghspin.blogspot.com/
http://www.MamaBearsBlog.com
http://kaneconsulting.wordpress.com/ (authored by Jen Kane)

Twitter

Graeme Thickins (GTA Marketing)

Jennifer Kane (Kane Consulting)
Stephanie Snyder (Padilla Speer Beardsley)
Anne Hendricks (Fairview)
Patrick Strother (Strother Communications Group)

Tim Otis (Axiom Communications)
April Nelson (Weber Shandwick)
Mike Keliher (Fast Horse)
Jeff Shelman (Augsburg College)
Albert Maruggi (Provident Partners)
Katie Konrath
Kary Delaria (KD Public Relations)
Anthony Deos (Target)
Lee Odden (TopRank Online Marketing)
Connie Bensen (Techrigy)
John Reinan (FastHorse)
Brant Skogrand (Risdall McKinney Public Relations)
Bridget Jewell (Mall of America)
Jason Sprenger (Xiotech)
Sara Masters (Minneapolis Synod)
Rebecca Martin (Beehive PR)
Curtis Smith (Carmichael Lynch)
Beehive PR
Sara Ryder (Select Comfort)
Heather Schwartz (Weber Shandwick)
Eva Keiser (Risdall McKinney Public Relations)
Risdall McKinney PR
Erika Dao (Mall of America)
LeeAnn Rasachak (Select Comfort)
Keith Negrin (Maccabee Group)
Terri Ellman (Tastefully Simple)
Kelly Groehler (Best Buy)
Minnesota PRSA
Amy Zemke (Beehive PR)
Greg Swan (Weber Shandwick)
Joel Swanson (Risdall McKinney Public Relations)
Jared Roy (Risdall)
Ryan May
Melanie Boulay Becker
Laura Kaslow
Jennifer Bagdade (Travelers)
Jon Austin
Ted Davis
Blois Olson (Tunheim Partners)
Susan Busch (Best Buy)
Amy Fisher (Padilla Speer Beardsley)
Liz Miklya
Nicole Garrison (St Paul Pioneer Press)
Allina (comm pros at Allina)
Shelle Michaels
Stacy Housman (Ameriprise)
David Hakensen
Mike Porter (University of St Thomas)
Rose McKinney (Risdall McKinney PR)
Gabby Nelson (Select Comfort)
Brooke Worden (Weber Shandwick)
Leslie Carothers (Kaleidoscope Partnership)
Michelle Wright (Padilla Speer Beardsley)
Ryan Maus (University of Minnesota)
Ryan Mathre (University of Minnesota)
Dan Wolter (University of Minnesota)
egiorgi (University of Minnesota)
MrChristopherL (Sterling Cross Communications)
PRMoxie (Sterling Cross Communications)
Scott Baird (Sterling Cross Communications)
David Erickson (Tunheim Partners)
Lee Aase (Mayo Clinic)
Maria Surma Manka
Heather West
Andrew Meyer (North Memorial)
Adam Meyer (Interval Marketing)
Chris Bevolo (Interval Marketing)
Kellie Due Weiland (Beehive PR)
Fast Horse (official account of Fast Horse)
Sandy Swanson
Colle McVoy (official account of Colle McVoy)
Liz Tunheim
Ben Saukko
Candee Wolf (Metro Dentalcare)
Lisa Grimm
Jason Douglas (Spyder Trap)
Doug Hamlin (Weber Shandwick)
Kristin Gast

Matt Kucharski (Padilla Speer Beardsley)
Gayle Thorsen (consultant)

Jillian Froelich (Carmichael Lynch Spong)

Justin Ware (University of Minnesota)

Leah Otto (Consultant)

Goff & Howard (PR agency)

Mike Zipko (Goff & Howard)

Jenna Langer (Padilla Speer Beardsley)

Old World Limited

Michelle Theilmann (Padilla Speer Beardsley)

Ross Kirgiss (Powerhouse Media Service)

MamaBearsBlog

Scott Deto (Eventis.com)

Robert Moffit (American Lung Association)

Ed Heil (Storyteller Media and Communications)

Natalie Wires

Dawn Bryant (Simplicity Communications and Consulting)

Brian Grace (ATK)

Angie Andresen (Storyteller Media and Communications)

Do we have a language problem in PR?

2009-04-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

When you think of PR, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

Admit it, you tend to think of media relations, right?

As I talk to business folks, I still get the feeling that a lot of people think PR is really just media relations.

Gee, I thought PR meant influencing and persuading attitudes, perceptions and behaviors of key stakeholders. More accurately, according to Wikipedia, PR is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics. In that respect, media relations is just one way we do that. Hasn't it always been that way?

PR is much, much more than just media relations. It includes a number of other disciplines that we all practice on a daily basis to help our clients achieve their business objectives. Community relations. Social media. Internal communications. Executive communications. Investor relations. And marketing communications, to name a few.

I think what we really have is a language problem.

For the bulk of the non-PR population, PR=media relations. But we know it to mean and represent so much more.

The key here is that this is affecting our reputation with executives. If management only sees us as media relations experts, it doesn't get us the credibility we need to get a seat at the big table. And it certainly doesn't allow us to demonstrate our many skills and talents for influencing and persuading the attitudes and behaviors of key audiences (and ultimately affecting purchasing decisions, for example). In the end, it usually means we're left out of key management discussions and decisions and our counsel is not sought--a "lose-lose" situation for both management and PR professionals.

So, given that, how do we start redefining PR for management? If you had 2 minutes to state your case, what would you say?

Follow Friday - Friday, April 3

2009-04-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

My Follow Friday suggestions for April 3, 2009:

@mikepilarz
@danamlewis (@healthsocmed--mentioned in video)
@dfolkens
@kellygroehler
@laskaroy

What are your PR "must reads?"

2009-03-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

As PR pros, we all do our fair share of reading. Me? I read the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and various local publications. Esquire and Golf Digest. And, of course, I read my fair share of PR and social media blogs. Where I fall short--at least lately--has been my book reading. You know, those hard-covered repositories of information and insights?

Sure, I read some non-fiction and an occasional Vince Flynn novel, but what are today's "must reads" for PR pros? Instead of sharing what I think you should read, I enlisted the help of my trusted PR colleagues. Here's what they had to say (interesting to note that very few of these suggestions were actually traditional "PR" books).

What would you add to this list?

Kellye Crane--Elements of Style (William Strunk and E.B. White) and The New Rules of Marketing and PR (David Meerman Scott)

Deanna Ferrari--How to win friends and influence people (Dale Carnegie)

Shonali Burke--Measuring Public Relationships (Katie Paine)

Lisa Hoffmann--Emotional Intelligence (Daniel Goleman), World Wide Rave (David Meerman Scott)

Greg Swan--Full Frontal PR (Richard Laermer) and Rengen: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer--And what it means to your Business (Patricia Martin)

Jen Wilbur--Groundswell (Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff) and The Influentials (Jon Berry and Ed Keller)

Lauren Vargas--Never Eat Alone (Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz) and Made to Stick (Chip and Dan Heath)

Dave Fleet--Now is Gone (Brian Solis/Geoff Livingston) and Tactical Transparency (Shel Holtz, John Haynes and Lynne Johnson)

Kelly Groehler--The World is Flat (Thomas Friedman), Execution (Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan and Charles Burck), and The Snowball (Alice Schroeder)

David Mullen--The Art of Client Service (Robert Solomon)

PR Rock Stars: A Conversation with Allan Schoenberg

2009-03-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about social networks is their ability to connect you with like-minded individuals you might not otherwise have the chance to meet. Such was the case when I met Allan Schoenberg on Twitter a few months back. Completely chance meeting--but since then we've connected on a number of fronts--everything from family obligations to B2B communications to Bells beer.

Here's the great thing about Allan is--in my opinion: Here's a guy who runs PR/communications for the combined largest financial exchange in the country and he somehow finds time to teach and educate the next generation of PR leaders, give back to his alma mater and network with other PR pros across Chicago and the country.

Rock star, right? Let's hear more...

You head up corporate communications for CME Group, which operates the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade and New York Mercantile Exchange (combined the largest financial exchange in the U.S.). I know social media plays a large role in your communications and PR mix. How are you currently using social media tools to shape and influence attitudes and perceptions of your customers and stakeholders and how do you see that evolving over the next few years?

Social media certainly plays a role in what we do at the exchanges and has for at least the past 18 months. Let me just go over how we use before I talk about what we use. Our strategies and tactics for social media encompass three things: listening, engaging and servicing. First, social media allows us to follow the trends and issues that our customers are most concerned with and talk about. By using social media we can better understand what is on their mind in both the short and long term. Second, we can actively engage customers with the products and services that matter most to the engage. By listing and talking about these we can monitor feedback and have a dialogue with customers. Third, we use social media to actively provide another way to help answer questions that are important to our customers.

Now, how are we using these tools to better communicate?

One thing that was very simple for us to do was to just make our media room social media enabled. Not only have we provided an RSS feed for our news releases for the past two years, but in late 2007 we took the initiative to make every news release shareable by using some of the most popular social media tools -- Facebook, Reddit, Word Press, Blogger, Twitter, Digg, etc. We know that customers want to talk about and share things we're doing so this was an easy decision for us.

Another way we use social media to our advantage is to monitor what is going on in the blogosphere. There are a number of media, economists and academics who blog regularly about things that matter to us -- risk management, treasury bonds, agriculture, energy, market regulation -- so following these people and engaging them is part of our strategy. I personally use tools such as Bloglines, Google News and Technorati to help me aggregate blogs and key topics.

We also are actively using some of the tools out there to help us better communicate with customers. Facebook has been helpful in allowing us to build online communities and forums for customers to know what is happening at the exchange. We have a customer group that was formed by traders following the merger of CME with CBOT in the fall of 2007. I proactively reached out to the admin of the group and asked if I could help manage the content. After adding me I've been active at posting content from our web site and the Internet with items that we believe should be of interest to the group. There are more than 350 members of this group today. Our Market Education team this past fall also created a CME Group Fan Page on Facebook that we use to showcase our education topics and forums. Both groups help us to communicate in different ways -- one in more of a conversation where we can interact with customers about topics inside and outside of the exchange, and another in a way that lets us talk to customers about the many education opportunities we have to learn more about our products and services.

Another social media tool that has been really useful for the exchange is Twitter. I personally started using Twitter in early 2008 (@allanschoenberg) and after seeing the benefits of talking with others I created an account for the exchange in September 2008 (@cmegroup). Today, we have more than 30,000 followers of the exchange. I'm very mindful of how we use this tool since, unlike Facebook that is more of a static post and comment forum, Twitter is a real time conversation. I don't use Twitter to push CME Group content out to people but I'd rather find the "diamond in the rough" blog posting about treasury bills and someone's opinion on how that may effect the market. I know that one way our customers are using Twitter is to gain a trading advantage, so if we can help them with useful trading information than we are doing our job. Twitter is an interesting tool for us because I have a number of things to balance with every posting. Since we are a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: CME) I know that there are people on Twitter who just own our stock and don't trade our products. So I have to converse with these types of customers in addition to traders. We also have to use Twitter like any other communication tool when we talk publicly knowing that we have to meet disclosure and regulatory guidelines. I think the advantages of Twitter for the exchange is two-fold: we can watch/observe/listen to what traders are talking about, and we can actively engage in real-time conversations with customers who need a question answered or want to talk with us.

In terms of what's next, I can tell we are actively looking at a number of other tools but I don't want to reveal just what is next quite yet.

You're also an adjuct professor in PR/communications at DePaul University and Loyola University-Chicago. Do you think today's cirriculum and programs at our universities and colleges are effectively preparing students for a career in PR or corporate communications? Where do universities fall short and what might you recommend as potential solutions?

I've been fortunate enough to be involved with two outstanding universities for the past four years with rich histories in the city of Chicago. In my short time at both schools I have seen a lot of great changes. The College of Communication at DePaul was established in 2007 and works to meet the needs of students in a variety of communication fields, including public relations. In January 2009, the Loyola University School of Communication offices moved into the brand new School of Communication building in downtown Chicago.

A few points of observation from my brief time at both universities. First, they both recognize the growing and exanding field of public relations. It is great to be involved with both schools knowing that they see the importance of the profession -- and that they tap into professionals to help teach. Second, it's also evident that we have a lot of work to do as a profession as most of my students know either very little about the profession. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for me as a teacher.

Like any degree program, I would guess that both schools wish they could require more credit hours and classes to fully immerse students into these programs. I think one way they are both trying to accomplish this is with the help of Chicago's vast public relations community. Both university's have PRSSA programs that tap the help of professionals, use professionals as adjunct professors and offer other opportunities for students to connect with professionals. Hopefully as these programs expand the growing alumni base will give back to their respective schools.

From our conversations, I also know you set up a scholarship in your name at your alma mater at Central Michigan University (a wonderful idea, by the way). What gave you that idea, how did you execute it (initially) and why do you continue to give back to the students at our alma mater?

Yes, back in 2002 I worked with Dr. Diane Krider to establish a public relations leadership award given annually to one student. I pay for the costs of the scholarship out of my own pocket and the university and student recipients have all been lucky enough to receive a partial matching gift from the exchange. I can't take all of the credit for starting this. The idea really came from Dr. Krider whom I met simply because I called her one day and asked how I could get more involved. There were two reasons for me to reach out to CMU. First, I would have to say that my involvement really goes back to my parents, who always pushed me to give back. That has always stayed with me. Second, I really wanted to help build a connection with tomorrow's future leaders in the profession. There are some extremely bright students coming into this field and they continue to make me push myself to be a better professional. The rest, as they say, is history.

I really would encourage everyone to somehow get back involved with their undergraduate university. My degree from CMU is in Economics so for me now to be involved with the school though its public relations program gives me a new pride. Not only has this been a nice source of accomplishment for me personally, but I do believe in the idea of mentoring up. Each recipient of the award brings something unique to our relationship and I have learned something from each of them. It's also important that they realize that while the scholarship is a one time deal, I hope to be able to maintain a long-term personal and professional friendship with each of them. To this date I still regularly communicate with each of them. I also work to try to connect them with each other. In addition, I try to make it every year to the university's annual PRSSA event on campus to speak and every spring I arrange a career day in the city of Chicago for six to 10 seniors in the program.

You can find several past recipients of my scholarship on Twitter (@rachelesterline @LacyQ @tasevedo @Kcovert @MeganSoule) and encourage people to talk with (and consider hiring) them.

We've been talking about the lack of conversations and case studies around B2B and social media for quite a while. This week, we finally began our venture to help better facilitate that conversation--the B2B Voices blog (along with Kate Brodock, Anna Barcelos and Beth Harte). How do you think this blog--and the conversations it will hopefully spur--will help communicators and marketers better understand this complex and relatively unexplored space?

I think there are a couple of misconceptions about B2B communications. One is this idea that it is not as glamorous or challenging as B2C communications. I would hope to show that even though some of the things we sell to our customers in the B2B space may not seem exciting, if you look at the value chain of what our companies do there are some very interesting things where consumers benefit from our work. I also hope we can show that many of the strategies and techniques we do really are very similar to the B2C enviornment. Hopefully this can show that making the transition from B2C to B2B and vice versa can be relatively seamless. Finally, I hope we can showcase some of the great professionals in the B2B space who do some excellent work.

Among other things, we share a common love of microbrews. We've had many conversations about how these brands interact online. If you were consulting these brands today, what would you suggest microbrews like Bells, Surly and Goose Island do differently to engage and interact with customers online?

Well, actually, I can appreciate any profession that requires a highly intensive skill or craft to achieve. It just so happens that microbrews are something that can be enjoyed with some of my great friends and a grille. I hope that the brands I enjoy really do embrace social media as a way to talk and listen to customers. Most of these brands grew up with their roots around friendships and a small group of people sharing a passion, and social media helps keep that passion alive with fans like myself and others. What I hope they don't do is use social media to alienate other core followers. I know plenty of friends who enjoy Bell's and Goose Island, but they're not active in social media. What any company/brand needs to realize is that social media is just another tool in the toolbox, but we can't forget the other ways to reach customers. The other part about using social media is that the brands have to realize that just "doing it" isn't enough. If you're going to set something up you have to use it otherwise you can turn customers off. Finally, they should understand that not every tool needs to be utilized; picking and choose what tools to use can be more important than using them.

Another topic we've talked about recently--the fledgling newspaper business. With more newspapers shuttering their doors every day, what can these institutions do to transform their model so they're not only serving their watchdog function for the public-at-large but also creating a sustainable business model?

I don't want to pretend I know how to run the news business. From what I can see the print side of the business is suffering from two converging dynamics. First, readers continue to migrate online for news, information and stories. I think the industry has known this for years and they have actually done some very interesting things with online content. So while that is effect the bottom line I don't think that is the key driver of what we're seeing. The second and more pressing issue of what we are seeing is more an impact of the economy than people not wanting to read the newspaper or magazine. If you look closely at what's happened with the papers and magazines that have either shut down completely or transitioned to more -- or only -- online content is that they are struggling through the credit crisis. They're losing advertisers, not readers, and advertising pays the bills. What will be more interesting is what the industry looks like after we come out of this recession. Will Seattle rebuild demand for the P-I? Will the Detroit papers reinstate weekday delivery? There are certainly some interesting models to follow, such as WSJ.com, Huffington Post, Slate and even what the Chicago Tribune is doing with social media. The way I look at it for myself is that I'm willing to pay for really good content -- WSJ, NY Times, FT, Esquire to name a few of my favorites -- so if the publishing industry can stay focused on getting exceptional content that its readers want they can charge a premium. And while I really am enjoying my Kindle and reading everything in one location, I do hope (and believe) the print business will be with us for a long time.

What corporate communicators can learn from Shaq and the NBA

2009-03-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

Recently, we've seen two NBA players tweet during halftime: Charlie Villaneuva and Shaquille O'Neal. My friend Warren Sukernek blogged about Villaneuva's halftime tweet last week and the comparison between the NBA's "command and control" approach by making players available to mainstream media right before halftime and a player expressing his own, personal views via an online medium.

This is an interesting story for a number of reasons, but the parallel I find most intriguing is the comparison with corporate America and its use of social media in the workplace.

In essence, Villaneuva and Shaq were tweeting during the game. From a coaches and owner's perspective, that's not a good idea. Even thought it's halftime, players should be 100 percent focused on the game. After all, they're paid millions of dollars to play basketball--and produce results. How can they do that effectively if they face an endless stream of distractions (like hopping on Twitter to update their status) during the game? But, to Warren's point, aren't NBA players obligated to participate in media interviews before and during the game? Isn't that the same kind of distraction? What's so different about tweeting or blogging or posting on Facebook?

Here's the interesting parallel with corporate America: As social media tools become more ingrained in the way we, as employees, communicate with our coworkers, our friends, our family and our customers, is it OK to engage on company time? Isn't that essentially what Villaneuva and Shaq did?

Many organizations right now are struggling with this issue. Surely, there are many companies (like Zappos) that completely encourage--and, in fact, outright promote--social media use during the workday. These organizations clearly see the value in encouraging their employees to serve as brand ambassadors who can actively shape conversations about their brand online.

On the flip side, other organizations see social media tools like Facebook and Twitter as a complete waste of time and a distraction to employees who should be focusing 100 percent on their work activites (hmm...sound familiar Mr. Villanueva?). These organizations often block social media sites and actively discourage employees from participating in conversations online during the workday.

Where does your organization, or the clients you counsel, stand?

* Do they condone the "command and control" communication model? Or, do they look at it in a different way and attempt to influence, persuade and engage customers?

* Do they see social media tools as distractions from work activities? Or, do they see leveraging these tools as an opportunity to engage one of your biggest assets--your employees--and open up a two-way conversation with customers that can help you further your brand and improve the brand experience?

* Do they believe they control the brand through ads, marketing collateral and Web portals they create and push out? Or, do they think their brand is what their customers say it is and attempt to influence the perception of that brand in the marketplace?

Follow Friday: 6 PR pros to follow--and why

2009-03-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

Over the last few months, I've participated in the "Follow Friday" trend as a way to share connections and promote others over the Twitter airwaves. But, I'm going to steal a page out of my friend Sonny Gill's playbook here and provide a little more context behind my Friday Follow suggestions on a weekly basis.

Here are my six Follow Friday suggestions for the week of March 16:

* David Mullen (@dmullen). One of the first folks I connected with on Twitter--boy, was I lucky. David is responsive, smart and funny (for a NC guy). And a tremendous advocate for the PR industry--learn more on his blog: Communications Catalyst.

* Danny Brown (@dannybrown). One of the great PR Twitter voices. Danny's a busy guy. Whether it's helping kids by donating a Wii to a local hospital or assisting starving children around the world through his 12Kfor12 initiative that he jumpstarted earlier this year (just raised more than 13K in 12 hours yesterday!), Danny keeps a pretty tight schedule. Oh, and he also manages to blog daily. But, he's always willing to help. If you're lucky, you can catch him on #journchat Monday nights, too.

* Scott Hepburn (@scotthepburn). The Chris Rock of Twitter. Scott's tweets have made me spit up my coffee on more than one occasion. Huge 'Cuse fan (don't hold that against him). Smart PR guy. And always looking to engage in conversation. You can follow his thoughts and views on his blog--Media Emerging--where he discusses the intersection between PR, social media and journalism. Following Scott's a no-brainer.

* Allan Schoenberg (@allanschoenberg). I only met Allan two months ago, but in that time he's helped me develop multiple blog posts, advised me on professional decisions and collaborated with me on a soon-to-be-unveiled B2B project. This guy knows PR inside and out and he leads the corporate communications function for the largest financial exchange in the U.S. Oh, and in his "free time", he's an adjunct professor at DePaul University at Loyola University-Chicago. Why wouldn't you want to follow him?

* David Spinks (@davidspinks). He may still be in school, but David's as smart as they come when it comes to the social media/marketing/PR space. And he's going to make some organization very happy in the near future when he graduates and accepts that first job. For now, he keeps an active blog full of advice on social media, creativity and marketing/communications. He's also a big sports fan (we connect here--even though he is from NY) and an artist.

* Amy Mengel (@amymengel). World traveler, PR and social media junkie and fellow Bell's Beer fan, I took a shining to Amy right away. Plus, she adds great value through her blog, Mengel's Musings, where she discusses corporate communications, B2B PR/marketing and a slew of other topics. Always engaging and willing to share her thoughts, I'd highly recommend following Amy.

Who are your Follow Fridays today and why?

PR Rock Stars: A conversation with Nicki Gibbs

2009-03-19T06:11:00.000-07:00

You only get so many chances to work with someone with the skills, personality and leadership abilities of Nicki Gibbs during the course of your professional career. For me, that opportunity came nearly three years ago when I joined the team at Beehive PR, a small agency in St. Paul. And believe me, when I tell you she's a rock star, that's actually an understatment.

Nicki's one of those rare PR pros who can write, consult, plan, lead and coach--all without missing a beat. Needless to say, that's not an easy combination to find. But, she serves her clients--and partners with her colleagues--in all those capacities on a daily basis. Flawlessly. OK, so I'm a huge Nicki Gibbs fan. For those of you who have worked with Nicki in the past, you know what I'm talking about.

Enough lavish praise from me--let's here from this PR Rock Star herself.

Q: You’re a group director (VP for all intents and purposes) at Beehive PR in St. Paul and you have two kids that are involved in a number of activities during any given week. Juggling agency life and a small family can be demanding, but you manage to find balance in the face of chaos—what are your secrets?

I wish there was a secret recipe, but if there is, I haven’t found it yet. I think everybody has to find a plan that works with individual career and family goals.

There are three things that work for me most of the time – prioritizing commitments, managing expectations and being present and focused on what I choose to do.

It is hard to do everything and do it well, so I try to pick the things that are most important, whether it a professional or a personal commitment.

It took me a long time to get comfortable saying no to things, but if I can manage expectations (yes, I can do this, but only this much, or no, I can’t do this, here’s why), it makes my schedule more manageable and keeps me on the up and up with the people who matter most.

I also try to be very mindful of what I chose to do so that I can really focus and give it my best effort. Let’s be honest, my clients don’t want me if I am distracted by my kids sports practice any more than my kids want me if I am distracted by my Blackberry.

It also helps to work in an agency that recognizes the benefit of letting employees work where and when it is best for them, for the team and for clients. Having the technology to support that flexibility is a gift.

Q: I had the privilege to work with you a couple years ago. One of the things I valued most about you was your strong leadership skills. Instead of taking the traditional top-down tack, you seem to favor a flatter, collaborative, more team-based approach. Who were your influences from a leadership perspective as you came up through the ranks? And what about those folks made a lasting impression?

I loathe office politics. In PR we are so often working on tight deadlines and facing other outside pressures that it is fatal to waste time playing the hierarchy game. One of the best ways to avoid it is to surround yourself with smart people and recognize that good ideas come from all levels of an organization or agency.

I have been very lucky in my career to be surrounded by great leaders and great teams who are more interested in great work than silly ego games. At the risk of this sounding like an Oscar acceptance speech gone wrong, here are a few folks who really influenced me, either as leaders or teammates: Cindy Matson, Sara Gavin, Chris Werle, Joe McGrath, Jorg Pierach, Lisa Hannum, Ayme Zemke, Kelly Puspoki, Rebecca Martin, Matt Hanson and Allison Resner.

The thing I loved most about working with each of them was the exposure to different styles, different strengths, and to be candid, different weaknesses. I think it helped me realize that one of the most important leadership skills is flexibility. If you can meet people where they are and keep an open mind about how to approach any particular challenge, nine times out of ten you will come up with a stellar solution. Of course, it helps when your team expects kick-butt results and will accept nothing less, something my influencers all have in common.

Q: Over the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some outstanding writers. I’d put you right near the very top of that list. Since PR professionals, as a group, continue to struggle in this area (in my opinion), what tips and tools could you offer up to younger PR professionals for developing and honing this critical skill?

One of my favorite pieces of writing advice actually came from my high school English teacher, “Choose your words deliberately, but don’t love them so much that you can’t kill them.” This is a great filter for clear, concise and persuasive writing. It also helps keep things in perspective when somebody takes a red pen to your work.

Another thing that can help you develop your writing style is to read – a lot. And read all kinds of things – newspapers, trade publications, blogs, business books, novels. You get a great sense of how to tell an effective story just by knowing what you like to read.

I think the last thing is to practice writing everyday. Writing is just like any other skill, the more you do it, the better you will be. And don’t be afraid to ask somebody to take a red pen to your work. Feedback is essential, as long as you take it in stride.

Q: You’ve mentioned to me a few times that one of your dreams is to write a book/novel. I’m curious, what would be the subject and potential title of that future New York Times best seller?

There are two books I want to write. One is a cookbook. The working title is “No Reservations”. It would be a collection of my favorite family recipes and adaptations of meals I’ve enjoyed eating out. The idea is that you don’t have to go to a restaurant to enjoy a great meal. You just have to take a little risk, try something new, and if it doesn’t work out, be okay with pancakes for dinner.

The other book I want to write is some kind of historical fiction. I have not formulated the plot yet, but I know I will enjoy doing the research if I can ever pin down the storyline.

Q: Over the years, I’m sure you’ve submitted your fair share of PR award entries. I know this is the first year Beehive PR has entered the awards scene locally. Your shop has already won “best in show” (Pinnacle Award) at the MN IABC Bronze Quill awards. Now, you’re up for a handful of MN PRSA Classics Awards next week. In your opinion, what elements are essential to a winning award entry?

I think agencies have a love-hate relationship with awards. They are great to win, but it takes an incredible amount of effort to submit a strong entry. Again, if there was a secret recipe, I’d love to have it. As it is, here are a few things that have worked out well for us:

Start early – When you start a new project, start thinking about it like an award entry. Keep an electronic file of all the supporting elements an entry needs, like plans, research, copies of clips, anecdotes from clients and other stakeholders. It is much easier to keep the file as you go than to try to go back and find everything at the end of a campaign. I am dating myself here, but back in the day, I used to have a whole bookshelf of three-ring binders overflowing with paper copies of everything we needed to enter an award. I killed a lot of trees. So glad there is a more efficient way to go now.

Be selective – Entering awards is time consuming, costly and sometimes stressful. You can keep it more manageable by being really critical on the front end. Is the entry really award material? If you decide to enter, are you entering in the right category? Would it fit another category better, or is there one with less competition? Doing a really great job on fewer entries can increase your winning percentage. That’s the whole point – nobody enters these things just for fun.

Tell a good story – Remember, award entries are judged by other PR people and communicators. They can see through your PR-speak and corporate jargon and frankly, it gets boring after about two entries. If you can tell a good story about your project that makes the judge think, “I wish I had worked on that program” you are half way to hardware.

Demonstrate results – We are challenged as PR people to demonstrate results. There is a difference between measuring the effort (like number of clips, circulation numbers, ad equivalency, etc.) and measuring outcomes (how did key stakeholders respond, did they answer the call to action, are there measurable business results). In my experience at Beehive and elsewhere, what sets winning entries apart is demonstrating that the work really made a difference to the client’s business.

Be memorable – Judges look at mountains of entries. If your entry stands out in tone, style and design, you are very likely to get a second look. If a judge thinks your entry looks interesting enough to read past the two-page summary, you probably just went the last half of the way to hardware.

Q: Unless things have changed drastically in the past year-and-a-half, I’m guessing you’re still doing yoga and pilates a couple times a week over the lunch hour at Beehive (one of the many perks of working at Beehive PR). Why do you continue to take time out of your busy schedule each week to do this and how does it help you stay healthier?

I love our yoga and pilates classes. I don’t get there as often as I would like, but I can tell a difference in my day when I do. I feel more relaxed and more creative when I get back to work. Since this is often the only time I get to work out, it is a benefit to my overall health – mental and physical. Around here you are likely to hear somebody say “only one workout away from a good mood,” and there is truth to that.

(Note: Photo above--the Beehive PR team accepting the Pinnacle Award at the 2009 IABC Bronze Quill Awards)

Best smart phone for PR? The iPhone/Blackberry/G1 debate rages on

2009-03-15T19:03:00.001-07:00

Technology changes quickly these days. Just think, a few years ago, we all thought a flip-phone was revolutionary. Today, our mobile devices are much more advanced. Heck they're practically handheld computers (the future is right around the corner). But there are so many choices out there--Blackerrys, iPhones, Google phones, and a slew of others. How do you compare and contrast? And more importantly, if you work in PR or communications, how do you find the smart phone that will best meet your personal and professional needs?

Introducing David Erickson, Lauren Fernandez and Jennifer Mitchell. Three PR pros who use their smart phones in their day-to-day professional lives. Each will examine the pros and cons of the phone they use, discuss helpful applications and talk about how they use the phone on a daily basis.

Device: iPhone

Price: 8 GB $199; 16 GB $299; AT&T Exclusive Carrier

Reviewer: Lauren Fernandez (@cubanalaf), Marketing Coordinator, American Mensa, Ltd.

Review: Three features I dig:

Social media applications (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Wordpress). Hands down, the application store on the iPhone goes above and beyond any other. I am able to customize applications to my needs and information is updated in real time. I can handle multiple Twitter accounts, respond to blog comments and check our Facebook fan pages with ease. The Application Store also makes it easy to install programs from either my laptop or the phone. With social media constantly being integrated in our daily lives, it is important to have applications to best fit the needs of a PR professional.

E-mail. E-mail is probably the one thing that I believe the iPhone can improve on, and where my BlackBerry was actually better. PR professionals are constantly on the go and need to be able to receive and respond to emails in a sufficient manner. Unless you are able to constantly hit the refresh button, my iPhone email will only update itself every 15 minutes. When I had my BlackBerry, I received emails on the spot. I was also able to manage all of my email accounts from one place, where the iPhone makes you go from account to account. I have a friend who works for a technology magazine, and his advice to me was “If you are buying a phone solely for email purposes, go with BlackBerry. You need an iPhone for everything else.”

Sidenote: If you use Exchange, make sure to have IMAP enabled so that it will be compatible with the iPhone.

Web browsing. I like checking for clips and reading the New York Times from my iPhone. The Web browsing on my iPhone is much better than my Blackberry, and the speed at which my phone goes from browser to Web page is much quicker than the Blackberry. Also, the ability to touch the screen and zoom into a Web site makes reading much easier. The Blackberry Storm can do this as well, but I found it wasn’t as natural as the iPhone. Safari is also able to display complex Web sites easier.

One thing I love that was not mentioned above: The sleek design of the iPhone makes it easier for me to carry it around than my bulky BlackBerry.

Device: Blackberry Curve

Price: $299 (depending on discounts and rebates)

Reviewer: Jennifer Mitchell (@jenmitch), Owner, JMPR Communication

Review: My Blackberry Curve is the best investment I’ve ever made for my business. I pay $120 a month which includes 2,000 shared minutes with my (non-chatty) boyfriend and unlimited data.

I purchased my Curve two months ago. I chose it over the Storm on the advice of a sage salesperson who suggested I needed a bit of patience for the Storm. Great advice. I wanted to use my phone now, now, now! My learning curve (pardon the pun) was zero.

Within thirty minutes my e-mail account, TwitterBerry and Facebook were live on my phone. (These are my do-or-die applications.) FYI- a Blackberry can handle up to five e-mail accounts.

My Blackberry does everything I need it to do for public relations purposes. I am always-on with my clients now, which gives me great piece of mind. Last weekend I replied to a reporter inquiry at 9:30 on a Friday evening. I can access Twitter 24/7 or get some social fun on with my Facebook friends. I am also able to view and edit documents. (This was a big selling point for me.)

My Blackberry’s Roxio media manager has become one of my favorite applications. I can hook in a USB port, boot it up and transfer photos/videos (any media) from my phone to my computer. This means that I can take pictures anywhere I am and utilize them on my blogs later. I find that I pay attention to my surroundings more often now and think: how could I use this later?

If you don’t have a navigation system on your phone, you’re missing out. I often have to navigate to new places in town for client meetings or networking events. My trusty Verizon Navigator came “traffic enhanced” on my Blackberry. I now know if I am going to run into a delay before I leave the house or while I am en route.

The Blackberry is not without its flaws. I find it amazingly annoying that there are character limitations on text messages. I’m sure my friends find it equally annoying when I sent “text blasts” when I have more than 160 characters worth of subject matter to share. And I’m not really sure why the default setting orders every e-mail I send (on my computer or phone) to go to myself on my computer AND phone. As the pack-rat I am, I can’t bring myself to change that setting. But it seems excessive, no?

All and all, my Blackberry reminds me of a miniature computer. It’s clearly not nearly as powerful but I’m always connected. For me, that means I’m always available for my clients and that’s the kind of service I aim to provide.

Device: G1 (i.e., the "Google phone")

Price: $179

Reviewer: David Erickson (@derickson), Director of e-Strategy, Tunheim Partners

Review: I was torn. I am typically a first-adopter, despite the lessons I should have learned along the way. Still, the inner tech conflict I was experiencing was should I get the pretty, pretty iPhone now or should I wait for the more utilitarian G1?

While the iPhone was cooool, there were a few things I couldn't get beyond: The virtual keyboard and the absence of copy and paste. I tested out the virtual keyboard on a friend's iPhone and took an immediate disliking to it; I couldn't type accurately. I've had full QWERTY keyboards for my last two phones, so maybe it's just personal preference. I might've gotten used to the keyboard but ultimately I could not do without copy and paste functionality. I do a lot of work on my phone and I would not be nearly as productive without the ability to copy URLs and email them. That was the deal killer for the iPhone.

The G1 costs $179 through T-Mobile with your regular calling plan plus a data plan of $25 or $35/month. Google services are built right into the phone: Search, Gmail, Docs, Contacts, Calendar, Reader and, very cool, Google Voice Search. HTC designed the phone, so it works beautifully.

First and foremost, the thing works as a phone. Reception is clear and consistent. The speaker phone is loud enough to hear people in my noisy Wrangler. And the slide-out QWERTY thumb-board works wonderfully. The only thing missing from the touch screen is the iPhone's pinch-gesture interface. Internet access is fast and rarely drops.

Another very strong consideration was that the G1 uses the open source Android operating system and, as such, allows anyone to develop applications for it. In the long run, I reasoned, there would be many more options and features than Apple's proprietary system would offer. Ultimately, if there was an application I absolutely needed, I could always pay someone to develop one. Looks like my reasoning was sound: A new In-Stat survey projects that Android phone sales will overtake Apple's in the coming years.

Essential PR pro apps:

Delicious Bookmarks - Easily save links to your Delicious account
Voice Recorder - Save and/or email recorded voice notes
StreamFurious - Listen to live radio through MP3 streams
Touchdown - Microsoft Exchange app

There you have it. Three smart phones. Three perspectives. Which one do you find more useful for PR purposes? Share your thoughts so we can all learn from your experience.

6 things to do on Twitter before you die

2009-03-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

We all have our "life lists." 10 things we want to do before we leave this earth. It usually includes incredible trips to far-flung destinations like Australia or Tahiti and serious challenges that you would normally never consider. Think sky-diving (OK, so maybe that one's not on Peter Shankman's list).

Life in the online world's a little different. But, I would argue it's somewhat similar in that there are a number of things I think every Tweep should do before they pass on to the next life.

Here's my short list. What would you add to this Twitter "bucket list"?

1. Participate in a Twitter hashtag conversation. Specifically, I'm thinking about Sarah Evans' and her immensely popular Journchat on Monday nights from 7-10 pm CST, but really any chat will suffice. I recommend Journchat because of the collaboration and sharing it fosters between PR pros, journalists and bloggers. But, I also recommend it to many who are new to Twitter for the "experience." I mean, the first time you try to follow Journchat (I recommend using an application like TweetChat), it can be insane. Your eyes glaze over. You can't follow the conversation. You may even get a little dizzy. But, then you start to figure it out. You begin to follow the threads. You may even post a tweet or two. Next thing you know, you're hooked. And then you're participating every week and encouraging your colleagues to join the fray (and Sarah's legion of Journchat disciples continues to swell!).

2. Live tweet an event. Attending a conference in the next month? Bring your Blackberry or iPhone along and tweet right from the event. For you, it's a fun way to relay useful information to your followers, friend and colleagues. And for those following you, it's a great way to glean useful nuggets of information from an event they may not have the good fortune to attend. Right now, this is relevant as I, and many others, would love to be in Austin at SXSW. But, since I can't, I'll be sure to follow Mack Collier, Beth Harte and others who are in Texas and relaying the best practices, tips and interesting stories along the way. Over the last few months, if you've noticed, I've also enjoyed live tweeting Gopher basketball games (lately @dfolkens, @mnheadhunter, @rpmaus and @ryanmathre have joined in the action)

3. Raise money for a good cause. Think Danny Brown and 12for12K. Think David Armano raising more than $16,000 for a homeless mother of three in just a few days in early January. Twitter can be a powerful tool to help rally your community around a common cause.

4. Have fun with your avatar. Chris Brogan seemingly changes his avatar once a week (closed circuit to Chris: I like the one with your daughter in the pic). Others have swapped out their avatars to demonstrate support for causes or charities (the various 12for12K avatars, for example). Whatever the case, let your hair down. Have some fun. Live a little.

5. Help someone get a job. Heather Huhman and Sarah Evans are the leaders in helping connect job seekers with employers in the PR area, but really, anyone can lend a hand. Send PR job openings you hear about to these two and they'll RT them to their networks (2,400 for Heather, 15,000-plus for Sarah). That's some serious reach. Or, make personal connections among your friends and followers. You might know someone who's hiring--and a few people that are out of a job. Broker an online Twitter introduction. And change someone's life.

6. Be a virtual mentor. Many Twittizens mentor in their "real lives". However, that doesn't mean you should pass on the chance to mentor someone virtually as well. It's easy and doesn't require a ton of time. Just passing along a few good pieces of advice to younger pros can help immensely. And make sure to tag your posts--use the #pradvice tag so everyone can benefit from your pearls of wisdom. You'd be surprised how far your message, tips or insights might travel.

Twin Cities PR/communications pros on Twitter

2009-03-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

Below you'll find the updated list of Twin Cities communicators online (Twitter and blogs). A number of updates this month, including two new agency accounts (Fast Horse & Colle+McVoy).

Again, standard disclaimer: This is by no means meant to be an end-all-be-all list. It's a work-in-progress and a resource for us all. So please, if you know someone I've missed, please leave a comment below and I'll add their name, Twitter handle and/or blog to the list. My plan is to update this list and re-publish every month so we have a definitive, running online catalog of all Minnesota PR/communications blogs and Twittizens.

Blogs

www.beehivepr.biz (Waxings--authored by various Beehive staffers)
www.mnprblog.com
www.samerowdycrowd.wordpress.com
www.marketingpie.risdall.com (authored by various RMPR staffers)
www.dailyaxioms.com (authored by Tim Otis and other Axiom staff)
www.fasthorseinc.com (authored by various FH staffers)
www.providentpartners.net.blog (authored by Albert Marruggi)
www.toprankblog.com (authored by Lee Odden)
www.conniebensen.com (authored by Connie Bensen)
www.getfreshminds.com (authored by Katie Konrath)
www.socialstudiesblog.com (Shandwick PR/social medial blog)
www.providentpartners.net/blog/ (authored by Albert Marruggi and Mike Keliher at Provident Partners)
http://abovethebuzz.wordpress.com (Sterling Cross blog)
http://prmoxie.wordpress.com (Sterling Cross blog)
http://mediapirate.wordpress.com (Sterling Cross blog)
http://e-strategyblog.com/ (blog by David Erickson)
http://social-media-university-global.org/ (authored by Lee Aase)
http://prchickspov.blogspot.com/ (authored by Heather Schwartz)

Twitter

www.twitter.com/graemethickins (GTA Marketing)
www.twitter.com/jenkaneco (Jennifer Kane--Kane Consulting)
www.twitter.com/stephaniesnyder (Padilla Speer Beardsley)
www.twitter.com/annehendricks (Fairview)
www.twitter.com/patrickstrother (Strother Communications Group)www.twitter.com/timotis (Axiom Communications)
www.twitter.com/aprilnel (April Nelson--Weber Shandwick)
www.twitter.com/mjkeliher (Mike Keliher--Provident Partners)
www.twitter.com/jeffshelman (Augsburg College)
www.twitter.com/albertmaruggi (Provident Partners)
www.twitter.com/katiekonrath
www.twitter.com/karyd (Kary Delaria--KD Public Relations)
www.twitter.com/asdeos (Anthony Deos--Target)
www.twitter.com/leeodden (TopRank Online Marketing)
www.twitter.com/cbensen (Connie Bensen--Techrigy)
www.twitter.com/reinan (John Reinan--FastHorse)
www.twitter.com/bskogrand (Brant Skogrand--Risdall McKinney Public Relations)
www.twitter.com/bmjewell (Bridget Jewell--Mall of America)
www.twitter.com/jasonsprenger (Xiotech)
www.twitter.com/saramasters (Minneapolis Synod)
www.twitter.com/rebeccamartin (Beehive PR)
www.twitter.com/curtisrsmith (Carmichael Lynch)
www.twitter.com/beehivepr
www.twitter.com/sleepnumbersara (Sara Ryder--Select Comfort)
www.twitter.com/prchck123 (Heather Schwartz--Weber Shandwick)
www.twitter.com/evakeiser (Risdall McKinney Public Relations)
www.twitter.com/risdall
www.twitter.com/ekdao (Erika Dao--Mall of America)
www.twitter.com/uptowngirlmpls (LeeAnn Rasachak--Select Comfort)
www.twitter.com/knegs (Keith Negrin)
www.twitter.com/terrijellman (Tastefully Simple)
www.twitter.com/kellygroehler (Best Buy)
www.twitter.com/minnesotaprsa
www.twitter.com/azemke (Ayme Zemke--Beehive PR)
www.twitter.com/perfectporridge (Greg Swan--Weber Shandwick)
www.twitter.com/joel22882 (Joel Swanson--Risdall McKinney Public Relations)
www.twitter.com/laskaroy (Jared Roy-Risdall)
www.twitter.com/mnpr (Ryan May)
www.twitter.com/melanieBB (Melanie Boulay Becker)
www.twitter.com/kaz152 (Laura Kaslow)
www.twitter.com/jbagdade (Jennifer Bagdade)
www.twitter.com/jmaustin (Jon Austin)
www.twitter.com/teddavis (Ted Davis)
www.twitter.com/dawnbryant1029 (Dawn Bryant)
www.twitter.com/bloisolson (Blois Olson)
www.twitter.com/susanbusch (Susan Busch-Best Buy)
www.twitter.com/amyLFisher (Amy Fisher-Padilla Speer Beardsley)
www.twitter.com/lizmiklya (Liz Miklya)
www.twitter.com/ngarrison (Nicole Garrison-St Paul Pioneer Press)
www.twitter.com/allinaComm (comm pros at Allina)
www.twitter.com/publicrelations (Shelle Michaels)
www.twitter.com/TCStace (Stacy Housman-Ameriprise)
www.twitter.com/haker (David Hakensen)
www.twitter.com/mcporter (Mike Porter-University of St Thomas)
www.twitter.com/roseMcKinneyPR (Rose McKinney-Risdall McKinney PR)
www.twitter.com/gabbyDNelson (Gabby Nelson-Select Comfort)
www.twitter.com/bworden (Brooke Worden-Weber Shandwick)
www.twitter.com/tkpleslie (Kaleidoscope Partnership)
www.twitter.com/MinnesotaPRSA
www.twitter.com/mhwright (Michell Wright-Padilla Speer Beardsley)
www.twitter.com/RPMaus (University of Minnesota)
www.twitter.com/ryanmathre (University of Minnesota)
www.twitter.com/DJWolter (University of Minnesota)
www.twitter.com/egiorgi (University of Minnesota)
www.twitter.com/MrChristopherL (Sterling Cross Communications)
www.twitter.com/PRMoxie (Sterling Cross Communications)
www.twitter.com/MediaPirate (Sterling Cross Communications)
www.twitter.com/DancingQueen1 (Sarah Ryder-Select Comfort)
www.twitter.com/derickson (David Erickson)
www.twitter.com/leeaase (Lee Aase-Mayo Clinic)
www.twitter.com/mariaenergia (Maria Surma Manka)
www.twitter.com/heatherwestpr (Heather West)
www.twitter.com/dloumeyer (Andrew Meyer-North Memorial)
www.twitter.com/IntervalAdam (Adam Meyer-Interval Marketing)
www.twitter.com/IntervalChris (Chris Bevolo-Interval Marketing)
www.twitter.com/kdweiland (Kellie Due Weiland-Beehive PR)
www.twitter.com/fast_horse (official account of Fast Horse)
www.twitter.com/sandralswanson (Sandy Swanson-consultant)
www.twitter.com/collemcvoy (official account of Colle McVoy)
www.twitter.com/liztunheim (Liz Tunheim-consultant)
www.twitter.com/bsaukko (Ben Saukko-Ameriprise)
www.twitter.com/candeew (Candee Wolf-Metro Dentalcare)
www.twitter.com/lulugrimm
www.twitter.com/jasondouglas (Jason Douglas-Spyder Trap)
www.twitter.com/doughamlin (Doug Hamlin-Weber Shandwick)
www.twitter.com/kristingast (Kristin Gast)
www.twitter.com/mkucharski (Matt Kucharski-Padilla Speer Beardsley)
www.twitter.com/impactmax (Gayle Thorsen-consultant)

PR Rock Stars: A conversation with Kelly Groehler

2009-03-05T18:21:00.000-08:00

If you work in the PR industry in Minneapolis/St. Paul, you'll be hard-pressed to meet many folks who haven't heard of Kelly Groehler. A past MN PRSA president (2004), Kelly is one of the dynamic--and more outspoken--leaders in the Minnesota PR community. She's also an active "community builder." Kelly gives back to her alma mater (profession advisor to the PRSSA chapter at St. Cloud St. University), is engaged professionally (APR certified; served as a member of the PRSA national advocacy advisory board) and is involved in the Twin Cities community (volunteers for the Citizens League).

By day, she's also a key member of the corporate public relations team at Best Buy--the largest specialty retailer of consumer electronics in the United States--where she oversees the organization's reputation management efforts and is credited with developing its corporate responsibility program. Sounds like a rock star to me. Let's meet the woman behind this sterling reputation.

You’ve been through a lot at Best Buy the last few months with the layoffs and changes. You’ve parted ways with what I’m guessing were good friends and trusted colleagues. And, at times, you’ve shared your feelings pretty publicly on Twitter. Talk a little bit about those experiences and why you chose to share your personal thoughts over the Twitter airwaves.

Thousands of our employees, across our brands and operations worldwide, share their personal stories, their fears, and their hopes – both for our company and their own futures – through Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and other platforms. True, many of the stories in recent months have reflected the difficult times and decisions we’re all going through as the economy continues to churn. The impact on our business, like so many, has been painful, but it’s also very personal, from one person to the next. These platforms help us support one another, consider others around us, and stay connected as we weather these changes in our business.

We also have the benefit of talented employees who develop ways for us to funnel these stories so they can be collectively heard – from the spy.appspot.com application developed by @benhedrington, to the creative uses of simple hashtags to categorize comments of employees leaving (#goodbyeBBY) and those staying (#helloBBY), to the Connect! page at www.bestbuyinc.com, which aggregates our employees’ voices and content from numerous sources. And these are just a couple of examples.

And while several of our senior executives are also active (such as @bjdsr, @BestBuyCMO, @rstephens), I think the average person reading our employees’ stories gets a pretty honest look inside our company culture, versus trying to figure us out via some “official company Twitter handle.” (We do have @bestbuy and @geeksquad handles currently being programmed so tweets from numerous employee handles feed it.)

My own activity on Twitter has a few different origins. One is cultural: I’m grateful that Best Buy is a company that encourages employees to “bring your whole self to work.” We know our competitive advantage comes from the perspectives of our people, whether they’re in a corporate support function, or directly engaging with our customers through our channels. Sharing my own experiences deliberately through this medium provides my honest look inside Best Buy. Plus, it gives others a pretty good idea of how I’m wired, and I’m not going to paint a picture of myself that isn’t authentic.

Another is core to the profession: This is a newer medium quickly accelerating along the adoption curve, and part of my responsibility to Best Buy is to understand how it works, participate, build relationships through it, and see how it drives perception and action – just as I’ve done over the years with other channels. Yes, it’s also being explored for commercial use, and why not? Look at e-mail, phone, postage-paid mail, Web sites, newspapers, magazines, television – point to a medium over the course of history that hasn’t been maximized commercially while also providing authentic content, news or information.

Bottom line, our stakeholders participate in here, and their perceptions of Best Buy are touched by the numerous company voices – not just mine – they experience. Our ability to build trust and connect with our stakeholders will require a continued adoption of these emerging channels.

Best Buy took an interesting approach in communicating with staff about the financial challenges and layoffs in December. Essentially, Best Buy gave staff a choice—take a buyout package or stay and take your chances. When this news was shared publicly, you did an interesting thing: I noticed you shaping the conversation on Twitter. Making sure the facts were correct. Answering questions. And providing your take on the situation. How do you feel that impacted the public perception of Best Buy’s unique strategy? And how did your work on Twitter intersect with your media relations strategy during that announcement?

We know that everything internal is external, and vice versa, so we have a tendency to approach communications strategies from the vantage points of numerous stakeholder groups and the use of multiple employee- and public-facing channels. This was no different a case. The sensitive nature of the financial challenges, and the subsequent impact on employees, meant the message must land first with our own people. Our external outreach strategy was laser focused and wholly proactive, targeting the key influential reporters covering our business.

That said, we knew the story would come back to us once the employees heard it. (We had a call from the Star Tribune less than 20 minutes after an employee e-mail message was distributed, listing the number of employees taking the voluntary package.) Twitter and other platforms are both internal and external media, so they were key to the effort, as part of the broader communications strategy. That said, I don’t think any of our public relations team members’ voices on Twitter (me, @susanbusch, @hawkstang, @justinbarber, @erinbix) for a major event in our business would be as effective if we weren’t tweeting on a regular basis.

How this particular strategy has affected public perception of Best Buy remains to be seen. There generally aren’t any quick-win measures for reputation. Our stock price has been somewhat steady – relatively speaking – since we announced the voluntary option. But we’ll also look at reputation measures, both proprietary and syndicated, that take the pulse of the perceptions both the public and our employees across the U.S. have of Best Buy, and their willingness to act (shop, work for, invest in, support locally). And we need to quickly follow up this next year with stories of how Best Buy is going to weather this tough period and stay competitive in this new era. Overall, I am pretty confident that we’ll look back at this period in our business and feel good about the way we chose to handle it.

You work in corporate PR-reputation management at Best Buy. However, you spend a decent amount of your day online on Twitter. Talk a little about the unique way you use Twitter to help further and protect Best Buy’s digital reputation online.

I guess I don’t see it as a “however” proposition. Funny, how we were saying the same thing 10 years ago about e-mail: “You’re spending too much time on it! Get back to work!”

I certainly do not see a distinction between an online, or digital, reputation and an overall company reputation. I have a pretty strong point of view that many are overreacting to social media, and compensating for it by trying to “sell” it as something it’s really not. Case in point: online reputation management. That, to me, is an attempt to spin something that can’t be controlled (reputation) and packaging it into something that can be (SEO, click-throughs, followers, etc.). It’s like pointing to the number of news releases issued in a year as a measure of impact. I’m not buying it.

I was tweeting earlier today with @creichow about our tendencies for flavors of the month. As he correctly pointed out, e-mail today is ubiquitous. But 15 years ago, we agonized over how it would deplete productivity and diminish the value of face-to-face conversations, while others extolled it as the game-changer for organizational excellence. Then, 10 years ago, we were doing the same with e-commerce. Today, what do we do? We agonize over social media, how it depletes productivity and diminishes the value of face-to-face conversations, while others extol its game-changing qualities for organizational excellence.

Again, this is a newer medium, and we need to understand how it works and participate. But the measures for what it can do are better directed at the outcomes, not the outputs. And, soon, this too will evolve, and I’m sure we’ll get all frazzled over the next big thing.

We’ve had a few conversations in the last couple months about the value of APR. I know you hold this certification (as do I) but we both agree there’s work to be done to position the APR designation better in the eyes of the business community. In your mind, how can we best tackle this challenge?

Right now, it’s entirely upon me, the carrier of the designation, to position and articulate its value for my business peers, and even for many of my public relations peers. But I don’t believe better branding for APR is enough. The challenge rests with the undergraduate programs, both in the liberal arts colleges and in the business schools.

The very problem we have with recognition of the accreditation designation – and with the public relations profession, for that matter – stems from the first introduction a student has to the role of public relations in business. If we keep the PR students in one building, and the business students in another building across campus, chances are very good they’ll learn two entirely different sets of ideas, and leave with two different pictures of what success looks like. Last I checked, the ones usually leading in the board rooms aren’t the PR graduates.

I don’t at all discount the liberal arts underpinnings of the profession; I value mine, and I believe they do fill a critical gap missed by business management programs. Additionally, PRSA does play a key role in undergraduate education, and I’m constantly impressed by students involved in the PRSSA chapters. But I don’t think that’s enough to overcome the “PR as marketing tactic” perception held in the business programs.

Until we force more connection between business management principles and communications principles, then we’ll continue to have the same problems with true recognition of public relations as a business management function. (Case in point: Who told Lehman Bros. it was a good idea to stand up at Davos in 2008 and announce that it was shock-proof to any economic hardship?)

Historically, Best Buy has been on the cutting-edge when it comes to new media and technologies—as evidenced by the development of Blue Shirt Nation just a few years back. How is Best Buy leveraging social media tools today to engage its customers and key stakeholders—especially during times like this when customers may not be willing to spend as much discretionary income as they would have in the past?

We sell consumer electronics – the stuff that makes all of this social interaction possible. Broadly, we know that our perspective on technology, and its constantly-changing state, is key to our differentiation against cost-based competitors like Walmart and Amazon. And that’s what customer centricity is about: not a focus on the technology itself, but rather helping consumers use technology in ways that enrich their lives.

So while I don’t think I or any of my colleagues would say that we’ve cracked the code, there is a shared point of view that social forums help us empower people to collaborate, listen, solve problems, and find new opportunities to help consumers discover what technology can do for them. We have a number of ideas, tests, and initiatives in play to engage our people, consumers, and others through these new channels. We know that some will work, others won’t, and everything will constantly evolve. That said, we’re not afraid to take risks, try things, and even fail, so long as we learn something from the experience that will further our business strategy and growth goals.

You’re a former MN PRSA president and long-time advocate for the organization. Talk a little about your involvement with PRSA and how it has helped shape who you are today as a PR practitioner.

I’ve been a card-carrying PRSA member since college, and I can’t give enough credit to the programs, experiences, networks, mentors, and leadership development I gained through active participation in PRSA at local and national levels. My viewpoints around reputation management, for instance, stem from those same theoretical and practical experiences. The accreditation process is vigorous, and the code of ethical conduct is a strong baseline for good practice. I absolutely think the organization is well-poised to help those entering this profession to view their work as a business management function, something that helps an organization steer its actions and words and advocate for the public perception.

I also think PRSA is at an interesting crossroads for its continued relevancy, particularly for those who have an increasing number of years’ experience. Not only is the accreditation program in need of coalition-building within business, we’re seeing business itself continuing to move toward adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) principles – that is, social and environmental accountability, as well as financial performance. These are times when the need for clear messages, stakeholder engagement, and advocacy in the court of public opinion has never been greater. Sadly, an entire cottage industry has emerged for CSR, and we don’t see the levels of engagement of public relations principles or practitioners where they need to be. This is more than an agency carving out a CSR practice area, or creating new award entry categories; this is a fundamental opportunity for the public relations profession to shine and add tremendous value to businesses worldwide.

I’m a believer in Bill Murray, the PRSA president, and his ability to navigate the society through this next wave in business, and come out well-positioned on the other side. So I won’t be giving back the membership card anytime soon.

Who's talking on Twitter? A list of moderated conversations and discussions

2009-03-03T06:31:00.000-08:00

Below is a short list of hash-tag-based moderated conversations on Twitter. The best way to follow any of these conversations: use an application like TweetChat, enter the hash tag and group name and join the fray.

Please add any discussions or conversations I've missed. I'll commit to updating this list on a monthly basis as a community resource:

#Journchat

When: Monday nights from 7-10 pm CST

Moderated by: Sarah Evans (@prsaraheavans)

Who should attend: PR professionals, journalists, bloggers

Notable contributors: @storyassistant, @rockstarjen, @rachelakay, @skydiver, @pitchengine, @dannybrown + hundreds of others I'm missing

#healthcomm

When: Sunday nights from 8-9 pm CST

Moderated by: Dana Lewis (@danamlewis)

Who should attend: PR/communications pros in health care, physicians, heath care researchers

Notable contributors: @edbennett, @tstitt, @2healthguru, @philbaumann, @billfer, yours truly (@arikhanson) + a slew of other passionate health care folks

#ageop (aka "Age of Opportunity" chat)

When: Thursday nights from 8-9 pm CST

Moderated by: Marc Middleton (@marcmiddleton), Bill Shafer (@billshafter), Katy Widrick (@kwidrick) and Jackie Carlin (@jcarlin)

Who should attend: Anyone interested in "the opportunities that exist for all regardless of age." Topics in previous weeks have included the divide between boomers and Gen Yers and how the Web has changed the lives of those 50-plus.

#gno (aka "Girls Night Out")

When: Tuesday nights from 8-10 pm CST

Moderated by: Featured panelists include Gina LaGuardia, former editor-in-chief of CollegeBound Teen Magazine; editorial director for the CollegeBound Network; @ginalaguardia; Keith Bourne, AdaptiveCampus, @adaptivecampus, Capella University representative; @capellaU; Nicole Russo, Capella University student and single mom of nine-year-old, working online toward a Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling degree, @nicatcapella

Who should attend: "Mommy bloggers", women interested in a variety of relevant and timely topics

#journ2Journ

When: Thursday nights; 8-9 pm

Moderated by: Chuck Welch (@chuckwelch & @journ2journ)

Who should attend: Journalists

Notable contributors: @lifeofmichael; @catekustanczy, @karenhanson

#smbiz (aka, "Small Business Chat")

When: Tuesday nights from 8-9 pm CST

Moderated by: John Sternal (@sternalpr)

Who should attend: Small business owners, entrepeneurs, independent marketing and PR consultants; group discusses issues facing small businesses today including hiring and insurance issues (topic for March 3 edition).

Brands on Twitter: What's the best approach?

2009-03-02T05:35:00.000-08:00

By now, most of us have seen the lists of brands on Twitter. We know all the major players and early adopters. The Comcasts, Southwest Airlines and Home Depots of the world. But, which brands are really engaging the right way? And how are they positioning themselves on Twitter?

It's important to note at this point, there are no clear-cut right or wrong answers or best practices--at least not in my humble opinion. We're all still learning about this space. The smart brands are just figuring it out faster than others, that's all.

What they're learning is that Twitter represents a people-to-people experience--not an organization to millions of customers experience (mass media model). This is one-to-one. These are real conversations. This is genuine engagement. Are companies ready for that? Some are. Others are terrified. Most are in between and testing the waters.

So, what's a brand to do?

Before your organization starts on Twitter, it needs to make decisions about how it positions its brand. Does your organization tweet under the corporate flag or do you take a more personal approach by letting an employee tweet on the brand's behalf? Or, do you use a hybrid model? Here's a few examples and thoughts about each approach including challenges and potential opportunities:

* PGA TOUR (corporate). One of my personal favorites. The TOUR positions itself publicly as a corporate brand on Twitter--even though some savvy followers know who's tweeting behind the curtain. PGA's bio reads like this: "Golf. Official tweets of the PGA TOUR, Champions Tour and Nationwide Tour."

Most of the time, the brand is live tweeting right from the course during tournaments from week-to-week (since I don't currently subscribe to the Golf Channel, this is how I keep up-to-speed on golf results now), but they mix in general golf and TOUR-related news and information from time to time. Obviously, the TOUR is using Twitter as a way to keep its online legions of fans up-to-date on news and tournament information--as it happens. For me, this is a hugely valuable service. The only downside to this approach is I don't see PGA TOUR engaging with its fans much. That's a missed opportunity in my view. They could learn from their fans. Hear their stories. And connect in a more personal way.

* Ford/Scott Monty (personal). The opposite approach is to enable one of your brand champions to speak on behalf of the company. Enter Scott Monty at Ford. Now, keep in mind, Scott had a very strong personal brand prior to joining Ford. But, for all intents and purposes, he is the face of Ford online. Scott's bio reads like this: "Head of social media at Ford Motor Company, husband, dad, host of http://ihearofsherlock.com and a generally nice guy. Formerly from Boston."

Scott's personal approach humanizes the Ford brand on Twitter. Take another look at his bio. From that short snippet we know that in addition to working for Ford he has a family, is a Sherlock Holmes wonk and hails from Beantown. Feel like you kinda know the guy already, don't you? And online, Scott has worked hard to keep his reputation as a "generally nice guy." And, as a result, he represents Ford in a different way. At times, he speaks on the company's behalf. Other times, he's building personal relationships with other Twitterers (and potential Ford brand advocates). And he's always working to shape the conversation around Ford and its products. This approach puts a more personal touch on the one-to-one conversations that happen on Twitter. After all, isn't this space all about personal interaction and two-way dialogues? Scott knocks it out of the park, in my opinion. Wish more brands were engaging this way.

* Kodak (hybrid). This is the combo platter. The corporate brand is in the Twitter handle title, but we see a name and face associated with the brand as well. In this case, it's Kodak's chief blogger and social media maven Jennifer Cisney. Kodak's bio reads like this: "Jennifer Cisney-Kodak's chief blogger. Design Geek. Photography Nut. Check out kodak.com/go/followus."

From this short bio we learned a little about Jennifer personally, which "warms up" the brand. But they're also careful to point us to a corporate Web site where you can find a slew of Kodak social media "assets" through sites like FlickR, YouTube and their various blogs. This is an interesting approach as you get the best of both worlds. Personal, face-to-face interaction (Jennifer's photo is part of the Kodak avatar) and tried-and-true corporate branding (Note: To be clear, Scott/Ford to take this approach to an extent--I just tend to think Scott does more personal tweeting than the Jennifer does).

Many brands have gone this way--Home Depot, Southwest Airlines and Dunkin Donuts just to name a few. Jennifer does an outstanding job as she really takes the time to engage with her followers--as evidenced by the 1,500-plus updates. In addition, I notice a lot of replies (@s) on Kodak's Twitter page--which in my mind, is a good thing. It means Jennifer is listening and engaging with Kodak's fans. Remember the 80-20 rule? 80 percent of your time should be spent listening and engaging. Only 20 percent pushing our original "content." Kodak seems to be following that guideline to the letter.

So, which model do you think works best? And which brands, in your opinion, are executing best on Twitter?

The best investment you'll ever make

2009-02-22T07:34:00.000-08:00

Over the last six months, I've been asked many times by colleagues, friends and family why I spend so much time on Twitter and other online channels.

My one word response: Relationships.

Like nothing we've ever seen before, tools like Twitter allow you to connect, share and collaborate with fabulously smart, creative and interesting folks across the world. People like Chris Brogan, Amber Naslund, Beth Harte and Jason Falls, just to name a few (OK, so I don't connect with many people from Singapore....yet).

These tools also allow you to build and foster relationships that often lead to real-life relationships. You hear examples all the time. Folks that have connected for months--even years--online, meet up in person and make the relationship that much stronger. It's like online dating, in a way. Twitter, and tools like it, provide you with the introduction and you build and nurture the relationship from there. I have gotten to know so many great people online this past year in the PR industry--folks like David Mullen, Rachel Kay, Danny Brown, Allan Schoenberg, Matt Batt, Scott Hepburn, Sonny Gill. I could go on and on. And I hope to meet many of these folks at events like SOBcon09 and BlogPotomac in the year to come. I also hope to meet up with others on a more personal plane in 2009--golf trips, informal meet ups, etc.

Why am I investing all this time and effort into this relationship building?

Simple. I see it as the best professional investment I can make. The relationships I build help me:

* Learn new skill sets. We're all learning about the ins and outs of these social media tools together, right? What better way to learn best practices and new approaches than from your colleagues and friends online? Seems like I learn a new way to use Twitter from my friends every day. I've also discovered new approaches to my blog by following, reading and commenting on some of the best blogs out there in the PR/social media space.

* Meet new people through my network's network. One of the first people I met through Twitter was David Mullen (lucky for me, I know). But through David, I've gotten to know so many other folks, like Lauren Fernandez and Jen Wilbur, who I know consider good friends and smart colleagues to turn to for advice and ideas. I've also met new PR folks locally through my online network--people like Ryan Mathre, Dan Wolter and Ryan Maus at the University of Minnesota. Folks like Graeme Thickins, Brad Bellaver and Albert Maruggi through Social Media Breakfast. And I've fostered existing relationships with PR colleagues like Eva Keiser, Jason Sprenger, LeeAnn Rasachak and many, many others.

* Uncover new opportunities. Through Twitter and the relationships I've built online, I've been offered speaking opportunities (about social media/PR) and recently had a shot at moderating the famed Journchat conversation on Monday nights (congrats to @standupkid, by the way). Offline, my relationships have led to at least two job opportunities, freelance consulting engagements and a slew of life-long friends.

* Hone existing skills. During the day I spend my time consulting with clients, thinking and writing. That's pretty much it. So, you would think I'd be pretty sick-and-tired of writing by the time I got home at night, right? On the contrary, I've found my online engagement to be a great way to hone my writing skills differently than the way I practice in my "day job." And, since I don't work as much in media relations in my current job, I relish the chance to develop my pitching skills through Twitter. After all, every time I attempt to promote a blog post or RT someone else' tweet, isn't that what I'm doing? And, in 140 characters no less.

* Build life-long friendships. You can't put a price tag on this one. Folks like David Mullen, Allan Schoenberg, Lauren Fernandez, Jen Wilbur, Rachel Kay, Matt Batt, Candee Wolf, Joel Swanson (I can't possibly name everyone) are people I see myself staying in touch with for a very long time. They're people I connect with on a professional AND personal level. And I value their friendship and opinions every single day.

* Feel better about life. Every day I go online and connect with my colleagues and friends in San Diego, Boston, North Carolina, Minnesota, heck even Romania (yes I follow someone from Romania)--I feel better about myself. I feel better about humanity. I feel better about life.

That's the "ROI" of relationships to me. What about you? Why do you spend so much time building your relationships? What do you hope to get in return?

PR Rock Stars: A conversation with Rachel Kay

2009-02-19T18:06:00.001-08:00

I met Rachel just a few short months ago on Twitter chatting about advice for young PR grads. Over the last few months we've shared thoughts on the PR industry, brainstormed ways to engage our PR colleagues and discussed the ins and outs of the golf business during her trip to the PGA Merchandise Show (hello, Jealous, party of one!).

But the thing I've noticed about Rachel, besides the fact that she's a razor-sharp PR pro who's never shy about telling you exactly what's on her mind: She's not afraid to jump right in. Yes, economic times may be tough. Yes, she may be resource-constrained (down a staffer at her shop). But, at the same time, she's not afraid to try new things, take a different approach or identify an opportunity and seize it before the moment has passed. Case in point: her involvement with Danny Brown's 12 for 12K initiative (see below). That's the kind of Rock Star I want on my team. The type who's smart, passionate and not afraid to take calculated risks. You can never have too many Rachel Kay's on your team.

You've recently joined the 12 for 12K challenge, an initiative designed to raise $12,000 for 12 charities in 2009 (the brainchild of Danny Brown). Why did you join the fray, how are you participating and what are you doing to encourage others to rally around this cause?

I was instantly attracted to 12for12K for a number of reasons, the first being the well-deserving charities that stand to benefit from this remarkable effort. So many non-profit organizations are in desperate need of assistance right now, and with the economy in its current state, people are understandably more reluctant to give up their money. This effort doesn’t require a significant donation – so it’s important to communicate to people that we can still be frugal while helping.

I was also fascinated by the cause because of the passion of those involved, especially Danny Brown. The best way to execute a successful campaign is by leveraging the resources you have in front of you. Danny Brown combined his expertise in social media and PR with a passion for charity to create this global effort designed to benefit so many. Other partners have donated creative services and PR skills. In addition, it’s really an experiment to see how social media in many different forms can propel camaraderie of giving. Our friends on Facebook, Twitter and other vehicles are our peers and friends, and through the sheer sharing of information we can take our efforts far and wide.

My task is to rally corporate partners engaging businesses eager to join an exciting and well meaning effort. What’s great is we can tailor a program to meet the needs of any company, so the sky is the limit! We really encourage companies to join us – because there is so much buzz about how brands are approaching social media, this is such a great way for companies to add to the social Web in an impactful way. This month’s charity is Stop the Silence, which helps pay for medical and psychological treatment, social services, legal costs and much more for young victims of sexual abuse. Companies, if you are reading this, contact me to get involved!

We've had some discussions online about the younger PR generation. You seem to have a great deal of passion around mentoring more junior-level professionals. What advice would you give these Gen Yers looking to advance their career in this industry?

The next generation of PR pros is a significant point of passion for me – I have spoken many times to students about the industry and what to expect as they enter their careers. In addition, as someone who is currently looking for entry-level talent to join our team, I have had great insight into the areas of opportunities in the current talent pool.

As everyone is well aware, the economy is a mess right now. Newbies are struggling harder than ever before, competing not only with other new entrants, but with more experienced people that have lost their positions in the downturn as well.

Tips for the job searcher:

• Network with Social Media. This younger generation is more experienced with social media than any previous. Now move beyond simply the social. Leverage this experience to reach out for advice, referrals, and information interviews using Linkedin, Twitter and even Facebook. Ask your network to help you, and give them the professional demeanor and materials to make it easy for them.

• Customize. Customize each cover letter for each potential employer. Time consuming? Yes, but what else are you busy with? When 300 resumes fly past my desk I want to know you want to work at MY company, and not just any company. I’m amazed how many applicants have clearly sent me a generic piece. In addition, if you send me the same template you send everyone, I figure that’s the same way you approach media relations, which isn’t what I am looking for.

• Prepare. Before meeting with a potential employer, use your skills to research the company. Go beyond the Web site – what are they saying on blogs, on Twitter and product reviews? Understand the types of clients they have, or the type of business they are in. Beyond your own learning, use these points of information to form your own insights, questions, and opinions and share them in the interview. You will come across as informed, thoughtful, and well beyond the typical candidate.

• Energize. In this economy everyone will experience rejection. Working through your disappointments will require persistence. Energy in the interview will also differentiate you. In this economy an employer wants to know that you are the best investment among many candidates.

Tips for those employed:

• Perform a Level Above. Always perform at the level you wish you were at. While you may dislike the tedium of compiling clips and sending out calendar announcements, if that’s what you resign yourself to then you’ll stay there a lot longer. Get creative and show off your strategic thinking skills by sending your supervisors new ideas to generate buzz for your clients. Pull together data on what the competition is doing and present it with some forward-thinking ways to for your company to get ahead. Read the trades so you can speak industry talk with the higher-ups. Do you current job fabulously, but think bigger.

• Speak Up! This is PR – make yourself heard. Always publicize yourself by being a dynamic force within the company. Position yourself as a future leader by speaking up in meetings and giving opinions and ideas. My first boss used to rap me on the knuckles for staying too silent! If you are vocal, you’ll be the first to be invited to that new business meeting or client call.

• Be a Sponge. Soak up all you can. Pick your boss’s brain over lunch about issues in the PR industry. Share something you learned during Journchat and ask her thoughts about it. Call your local television station and ask if you can come in for a station tour. Offer to treat a reporter lunch in order to learn more about what he or she likes to write about. Read everything you can get your hands on. Knowledge is power!

I know you're a big Sarah Evans fan and you follow JournChat religiously. Why do you participate and what do you think other PR professionals can gain by joining the discussion every Monday night?

Sarah Evans has done an incredible job providing credibility to the career of PR as well as leveraging social media in revolutionary ways to benefit the trade. Journchat is a fun and engaging meeting of the minds for PR up-and-comers, veterans and journalists, which takes place Monday nights on Twitter. Never has there been a better opportunity to get inside the heads of journalists to find out how they like to be pitched and what the most current tools are.

Anyone in the PR industry can gain insight by participating in or following Journchat. PR is changing with the speed of light, and pros are implementing new techniques all the time. These fantastic ideas, especially the implementation of social media, are common topics of discussion on Journchat. This is a free service which can help all of us stay on the cutting-edge of the successful techniques others are using. In addition, Journchat gives each of us the chance to position ourselves as leaders in our field and to build relationships with journalists and bloggers in an incredibly personal and engaging way. Just follow #Journchat and join the conversation or simply soak up the information.

You started Rachel Kay Public Relations a little over a year ago. What key lessons have you learned in the past year about running a small agency and the challenges that go along with that?

I learned that running an agency is a lot of work! The biggest challenge for me is juggling the administration with the client work – because we are small, I have to do a lot of things myself including sending invoices, collections, interviewing and purchasing. However, the benefits far outweigh the challenges.

There is an amazing satisfaction in taking on clients based on what you enjoy and believe in. I love the thrill of courting a client, customizing a plan with exciting ideas and creative thinking, nurturing my clients understanding of communication and creating results that elevate their businesses. In addition, I also adore my team and creating an atmosphere where my employees feel empowered to own projects and share ideas.

Finally, a personal question. I know you follow the Hollywood scene closely. Any insights into what we might see at the Oscars on Sunday? Any favorites or dark horses you like? Surprises we might not expect?

I am going to be completely honest – I am in no way qualified to answer this question because I have only seen one of the flicks, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” I’d like to see a few more before the big night if possible, but in true PR style, I’ll take my own direction with this question and make some bets on the fashion, since that tends to be my favorite part!

The ladies – Some of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood are vying for awards this year, which will make this year’s awards show stunning if nothing else. Angeline Jolie will shine as always, I predict in a Grecian-inspired dress, but I am hoping she goes bold with something outside of her typical neutrals. Anne Hathaway will ravish the red carpet with her classic glamour in something bright and eye-catching. Kate Winslett will rock her fabulous curves in a form fitting gown (I’m betting blue, which seems to be her favorite). Penelope Cruz has worn black (my favorite) at the last two big shows – will she change it up for the big night?

The gents – A more rugged crew than the ladies, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke are sure to be sporting just-rolled-out-of-bed disheveled hair – hopefully partnered with some dapper tuxes. Taking a big leap (note the sarcasm), I predict Brad Pitt will be his always traditionally stylish self in classic black tie. Finally I think Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire will keep it young and fresh, possibly choosing a skinny tie over typical black tie and maybe adding a pop of color. That’s all from the Red Carpet.

Rachel Kay Public Relations (RKPR) specializes in the consumer technology, food, beauty and fashion industries. RKPR helps smaller, emerging brands and Web start-ups maximize their potential and tell their story through a variety of tactics including media relations, media events and press conferences, social/online media, and media training. RKPR has landed coverage for their clients in the nation's top press, including CNN, Good Morning America, The Today Show, Newsweek, People, Elle, US Weekly, Entertainment Tonight, Cosmopolitan, Shape, Self, Fitness, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Brandweek, Adweek and many more. You can find Rachel and her agency online at www.rkpr.net.

Throwing my hat in the Journchat ring...

2009-02-18T14:48:00.001-08:00

At the suggestion of a few friends and colleagues, I am throwing my hat into the proverbial ring for moderator consideration during next Monday's Journchat.

Sarah: If selected, I can only hope to be 1/100th the moderator you have been since you founded Journchat. You have set the bar remarkably high! Thanks again for this wonderful opportunity. Regardless of who moderates next week, your openness to sharing the stage and spotlighting others is one of the reasons I, and many others online, love collaborating and working with you.

Cheers!

Social Media and Not-for-Profits: The perfect marriage?

2009-02-16T05:53:00.001-08:00

I've had several conversations with leaders at local not-for-profits lately and one theme continues to emerge: How can we use social media tools to further our organization's vision and help us make a difference in the communities we serve?

I currently consult with two not-for-profit organizations and for both social media can and will play a key role in their marketing and communcations mix in 2009.

Why?

The tools are cheap or relatively inexpensive--key for not-for-profits with little to no communications budget. They're usually easy to set up. Also important for organizations who usually have one do-it-all communicator on staff. And finally--and most importantly--most social media tools can help build stronger communities. Isn't that what not-for-profit organizations are all about?

Think about the not-for-profit organizations in your town. Maybe you volunteer with a few. Are they taking advantage of these new tools and resources (in addition to their existing PR and marketing tools) to connect with donors, volunteers and community members? If not, maybe it's time for you to intercede and lend your valuable time and talents to help an organization you believe in further its mission. Here's a few ideas to get you started:

* Communicate more effectively and efficiently with volunteers through a blog. Instead of communicating with your volunteer base through one-off and group emails, communicate one-to-many through a blog. Using this tool, you can also share photos and video with these important stakeholders. And best yet, they can share with and learn from each other by posting comments and information.

* Enable photo sharing (and spread your message) by creating a FlickR account. Most not-for-profit organizations hold events--whether it's to raise money, engage new audiences or recognize volunteers. Why not give your members and stakeholders the opportunity to share these photos with their friends, families and colleagues through their own social networks like Facebook. After all, who doesn't like to see themselves in a photo? It will spread your message and mission to audiences you've never reached before.

* Build stronger communities and engage your champions through a Facebook "fan" page. Set up a playground where your members and stakeholders can interact, share and connect. Give them the resources they need to tell your story (photos, PDFs of donation forms, brochures, etc.). Provide video testimonials from people your NFP has helped. Find new ways to engage this "fan base."

That's the short list of my ideas. I know there are many others out there. What's worked for you? How are NFPs using these tools to build stronger communities?

Photos courtesy of American Red Cross and kmxphoto.

PR Rock Stars: A Conversation with Greg Swan

2009-02-12T18:28:00.000-08:00

You hear something once, you may dismiss it. You hear it twice, your ears start to perk up. You hear it three times, you start to believe the hype. This has been my experience in getting to know Greg Swan, digital strategy manager with Weber Shandwick here in the Twin Cities.

Over the last few years, I've heard so many great things about Greg and his work--from my PRSA colleagues, mutual friends and PR leaders throughout the community. But, I'd never really had the chance to meet Greg and sit down and chat until just a few weeks ago. Instantly, I became a huge fan.

Smart. Plugged in. Creative. Early adopter. Greg Swan is many things. What he is not is just another media relations pro. Sure, Greg knows PR backwards and front. But, what makes Greg so unique is his ability to draw upon his experience with digital solutions, citizen journalism and PR to craft integrated marketing and communications programs for his clients. Now, that, my friends is how you become a PR Rock Star.

You’ve been one of the pioneers in the Twin Cities blogosphere since starting your PerfectPorridge blog in 2004. How did you get into blogging and who would you consider your key influencers and mentors in that space?

After my ad agency stint in Des Moines, I interned at the alternative newspaper in Des Moines and had the opportunity to put that journalism side of my PR degree to work and fell even more in love with writing. Shortly after leaving the paper I co-founded and edited a statewide arts magazine dedicated to the arts, Art Scene. When I moved to the Twin Cities and moved into PR full time, I still needed an outlet for all of that arts-writing passion. Perfect Porridge was born.

However, I first set up a LiveJournal blog back in 2000, where I eloquently shared rants like, “Why I Refuse to Call Independence Day the Fourth of July.” Now I maintain three to four blogs daily: PerfectPorridge, Greg Swan, Minneapolis Metblogs, PerfectPorridge Second Helpings; but try to stay away from the pajama-style rants. Twitter is the ultimate blogging tool, and because it’s so simple to update, it’s my preferred publication medium.

There are so many pioneering trailblazers across the blogging landscape; it’s difficult to give them all enough credit. I can’t say I regularly read a single blog, but I do make it a practice to skim FriendFeed, Twitter and Google Reader a few times a day and use a sundry of new media widgets and alerts for constant updates.

I have this horribly personal analogy for mining this overwhelming data stream I can’t stop myself from sharing: I imagine myself as an F16 fighter pilot who flips down a 360-degree lens wherein real-time data is piped through the lens and enters the sensory awareness of my consciousness as I fly the plane. I may not directly pay attention to every post or news story, but there is a working madness to the osmosis of skimming hundreds of streams a day and gleaning a general feel for news of the day or what’s really important. That’s how I use social media streams – straight to the brain!

You play a key role on the digital strategy team at Weber Shandwick here in Minneapolis. As we ease into February, how are organizations integrating social media and digital tools into their marketing communications mix differently in 2009? What kind of trends are you seeing there?

Clients and agencies are looking are continually evaluating and evolving their approach to social marketing. Weber Shandwick Digital has a focus on inline communications, meaning we don't create a stand-alone, traditional communications campaign and bolt on a few online tactics just because. We also rarely deliver solely digital or social media plans. Instead, we craft integrated strategic plans that reflect the audience our clients are trying to reach, as well as the approach that will be most effective in driving advocacy for a specific brand, issue or company.

Advertising, interactive, pure-digital and even events companies are trying to carve out their own approach to social marketing. In my opinion, PR agencies already build campaigns that help a company/brand foster two-way dialog with their stakeholders. Therefore, social media is a logical, next-generation framework for generating the opportunity for this discussion to happen.

Additionally, legacy media reporters are increasingly using media tools – often without realizing it. The “2008 Journalist Survey on Media Relations Practices” study found the greatest change in journalism practices as a result of the internet to is the ability to access corporate news and contact information online 24 hours a day. Nearly half of journalists reported visiting a corporate website or online newsroom at least once a week, while nearly 87 percent visit at least once a month.

Many companies see those kinds of stats, review their own corporate newsroom and take a big “gulp.” We’re helping companies bridge the gap between 1) legacy reporters who may still want a formal news release and a high-resolution photo, and 2) citizen journalists who may want two bullets and a Web-quality photo, plus a digg or del.icio.us button.

Whether it’s a social media newsroom to accommodate unique media needs, a corporate blog for consistently updated information, or a Twitter account for less formal updates, I feel we’re enabling the trend toward corporate transparency and immediacy using new media tools.

As for other trends in the mediasphere and PR industry, check out these other stats from that same study:

* Nearly 75 percent follow at least one blog regularly
* More than 75 percent of journalists say they use social media to research stories
* Nearly 38 percent of journalists now say they visit a social media site at least once a week as part of their reporting
* More than 53 percent of journalists now say they visit a social media site such as FaceBook or YouTube at least once a month
* Nearly 19 percent of journalists receive five or more RSS feeds of news services, blogs, podcasts or videocasts every week

This blurred gray line between traditional and social media is the reason I’ve tried to stop myself from using the terms “mainstream media” and “new media.” It’s increasingly hard to distinguish the two.

With that said, mass media is still “mass,” yet legacy news outlets now publish their stories online and include comments and sharing tools. I think what’s left of that gray line will dissolve by 2010.

You’re actively involved in both PRSA and MIMA (Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association). In fact, you just moderated an outstanding panel at a recent MIMA meeting at the University of Minnesota that covered digital reputation management. Why do you continue to be so involved in these two organizations? What value does it bring to your professional life?

I highly recommend PR pros join one or more professional organizations. My college advisor was a long-standing APR accredited professional and frequently extolled the importance of accreditation to help shape and restore PR’s reputation.

Based on Wednesday’s unfortunate USA Today piece, “Despite dim view of public relations, it may be needed,” the PR industry still has a long way to go on the reputation front.

PRSA’s code of ethics and APR programs are a great foundation for new and tenured PR folks to lean on day-to-day, and especially in time of a crisis or need for a snap-judgment.

MIMA is leading the way as the go-to organization for interactive marketing strategies. They also hold less formal, more frequent and integrated discussions about a wide range of topics that help me stretch my thinking beyond PR 101 blinders.

Back to the inline concept, it’s important for all PR professionals to understand the changing face of the media landscape. You don’t have just one person in your company/agency who knows how to write a press release, so you can’t afford to just have one person who reads blogs or even more importantly, understands how an innocuous blog post can seriously and immediately impact mass media coverage.

I can understand the challenges professional organizations face in recruiting these days, particularly with 1) the economy tightening our belts and budgets and 2) a Millennial generation who may view their employment as an 8-5 commitment and perhaps not a career that demands investment, education and peer interaction.

Event groups like Social Media Breakfast MSP, Conversations About the Future of Advertising and Likemind provide all generations with a less formal opportunity to get together, network and collaborate. I think we’ll continue to see formal organizations become more dynamic while these information organizations adopt formal protocols to manage growing membership bases.

I recommend seizing the opportunity to interact with peers at every chance, and the Twin Cities marketing community offers countless opportunities every month.

As I mentioned, you started PerfectPorridge, a Minneapolis-based music blog that covers the national, international and local music scenes. Clearly, you have a passion for music, but what keeps you blogging? It doesn’t seem like you have a lot of free time on your hands with your position at Shandwick, professional association duties, speaking engagements and your growing family. What’s stoking that fire?

That’s a great question. I like to be busy and have my irons in lots of fires. But last fall we bought this gorgeous 120 year-old house, and if you were following closely, you may have noticed my tweeting, blogging, tagging, etc. severely dropped off while I refinished the hardwood floors and tended to home projects.

I also rarely tweet or blog between 5-8 p.m. when I try to give my son the attention he deserves. With new technology tools, it’s simple to stay connected, but I try to maintain a healthy level of offline discipline, too.

Interested in a live band take from you. Give me your top three local (Minneapolis) bands and three national bands you absolutely have to see when they come to town.

I understand the reasoning behind this question, but I always hate ranking local bands. Our musical community boasts a tremendously creative talent pool across multiple genres.

The new P.O.S. album, “Never Better,” is shaping the next generation of hip-hop. Adam Levy (of the Honeydogs) recently put out a kids CD under the moniker Bunny Clogs. I took my two year-old to Rock the Cradle at the MIA a few weeks ago to see Adam and his daughter perform tracks from “More! More! More!” Jeremy Messersmith is another talented singer-songwriter who has recently come on my radar. His track, “Welcome to Suburbia” was my theme song last fall.

Nationally, I have to recommend Raleigh’s Annuals, who never fail to disappoint when they come through town. I’m also a big fan of Great Northern’s dissonant songwriting and poignant live show. They have a new album coming out, “Remind Me Where the Light Is,” poised to really break them out. I also caught Fujiya and Miyagi last night at a sold out 7th Street Entry show. My ears are still thumping twelve hours later.

You seem to be somewhat of a hybrid in professional terms—you have a keen interest in citizen journalism as the captain of the Minneapolis Metroblog, you work for one of the largest PR shops in Minnesota and you clearly “get” the social media/digital space. What do you see as the advantage of focusing on multiple areas of expertise instead of specializing in just one?

Unlike some traditional brick and mortar trades, public relations is an industry that changes dynamically nearly every day. I’ve found the best way to stay in touch with those changes is to jump into the fray head first.

For example, to be a good PR pro, it’s critical to understand journalism and the natural flow of news. Both the definition of “news” and how that news is reported have changed greatly in the last decade. But it’s not as easy as touring the local newspaper and TV stations and reading the local daily newspaper every morning.

Reporters are scanning blogs, LinkedIn and using Twitter to source experts for their stories. Stories are now often updated after they publish with corrections or better, fresher content. And where do they get that content? Press releases still serve a purpose, but that purpose is fading. Matte releases are headed the way of the Video News Release. With the advent of e-mail, reporters are the most accessible they’ve ever been, yet they’re completely overwhelmed with competing pitches from our peers. Meanwhile, everyday people – citizens – are using new tools to publish, share and tell stories and impact mass media coverage.

The most daunting challenge we face – that tomorrow will never be the same as today – should be the easiest hurdle to overcome. I want to be involved in knowing and shaping what’s next, and the best way of knowing and shaping is by doing.

7 ways to hone your consulting skills

2009-02-10T06:11:00.000-08:00

Like many in the PR/communications business, I've been on both sides of the table. As the consultant, you're looked to for fresh ideas and sound advice. On the corporate side, you're more accountable for the organization's results and feel a little more connected to your employer. After all, you're on the "inside."

But, after sitting in both chairs, I've learned the consulting skills in both positions are quite similar--no matter if you're on the inside or coming from the outside. Regardless, these skills are among the most important in your toolbox. You might have a great idea or strategy you believe your client should implement, but unless you can persuade, communicate and manage expectations, you won't get too far.

So, as you sit down with your clients next week, think about how you can improve your consulting skills. Do you have a tendency to do all the talking in client meetings? Do you really understand your client's business? How well do you know your client? As you assess your performance, keep the following tips in mind:

* Understand your client's business--inside and out. This is imperative. You can't provide effective counsel if you don't understand the key drivers of their business. Who are the client's key audiences? Who are their top three competitors? How are they perceived in the marketplace? Who are the key influencers in their market? You know the drill.

* Partner and collaborate--don't preach and tell. Easiest way to get under a client's skin? Walk in to the meeting and start telling them how smart you are, how much they have to learn and what they should be doing to improve. Yes, they want your advice--but it's all in the approach. If you can learn to join forces with your clients and work toward common goals (isn't that the whole idea?), it will pay huge dividends down the line. Results for your client. Additional work for yourself or your agency (results for you). And happiness. True happiness.

* Listen. Intently. Probably the biggest mistake we make as consultants--we don't listen enough. We're so eager to advise our clients and tell them what to do, we forget to listen. I mean, really listen. One way to do this? Ask intelligent questions. Start with the basics. What are your business goals this year? How do you expect marketing/PR/communications will help you achieve those goals? How are you currently performing vs. expectations? What are the top three challenges your company's facing right now? What's preventing you from reaching your goals? Get the client talking. And listen.

* Do your homework. The mark of any good consultant? Over-prepare for every client meeting. That means walking in with an agenda--even if the client didn't ask for one. That means clearly laying out what you hope to achieve in the meeting. That means researching the client and their immediate and long-term needs, the challenges they're currently facing and identifying any roadblocks they need to navigate. Never, ever, ever be caught with your pants down in a client meeting because you weren't prepared.

* Tell them how wonderful they are. The great ones do this so well. I've had the privilege to work alongside some incredibly talented consultants in my career and they always made a point to commend the client and their team on their great work. Without flat-out lying, of course. Couple reasons why this is a smart move. A) It shows you're paying attention to what they've been doing and that you recognize great work, and B) It helps you start building that relationship, which is critical. The client has to see you as a partner, someone who's looking out for their best interests. By telling them how great they are, you're in fact saying, "You do great work. I do great work. Let's do great work together for your brand."

* Manage expectations. An often overlooked component of the consultant-client relationship, but one that's vitally important. Constantly look for ways to uncover the client's expectations around specific projects you're working on together, your role in the work and the overall relationship. This will help you manage those expectations when projects get derailed or sidetracked or results don't pan out as originally planned.

* Date your client. Ok, not really because that will get you fired (or not, stranger things have happened). Instead, build a relationship with your client. Find out what they're interested in outside of work. Find ways to incorporate those interests into your daily interactions with them. Remember their birthday. Comment on photos on their desk. Ask about their children. Just get to know the client as a human being. To a large extent it's still a relationship-based business. People do business with people they like. Work on being someone people like.

So, how are you doing? Are you hitting on all cylinders in these areas? Any room for improvement? If yes, how do you plan to hone your consulting skills in the weeks and months ahead?

Note: Photo courtesy of Creator Apps

PR Rock Stars: A conversation with LeeAnn Rasachak and Sarah Ryder

2009-02-05T19:42:00.000-08:00

My first two conversations in the "PR Rock Star" series have been with fairly seasoned PR pros--David Mullen and Lee Aase. Today, I'd like to highlight two younger pros and a couple of the real up-and-coming PR stars in the Twin Cities community--LeeAnn Rasachak and Sarah Ryder.

If you're on Twitter, you may know them as @uptowngirlmpls and @sleepnumbersara. Together, they make up a formidable social media and PR duo at Select Comfort, the number-one bedding retailer in the U.S. They're also both past Dr. Willard Thompson scholarship winners (through PRSSA), by the way, so we know they're smart, driven and ethical practitioners at their core.

OK, enough set up--let's get on with the conversation! Hope you enjoy this installment of the PR Rock Star Conversation series.

You’re both active on Twitter professionally with Select Comfort, the number-one bedding retailer in the U.S. You share information, promotions and sleep tips through your accounts. What was your strategy as you started to use this new tool in your marketing mix? And what’s the one thing you’ve learned about your community through using Twitter?

LeeAnn/Sarah: As a communications team, we’ve adapted social media vehicles like Twitter and Facebook to reach our customers and consumers interested in getting a good night’s sleep. By providing followers and fans with sleep tips, sleep/health news and Sleep Number promotions, we’ve become a resource to help them achieve the best sleep possible. Fortunately, the Sleep Number brand meets two essential social media criteria a brand needs to have in order to be successful:

• The Sleep Number brand has a solid awareness among online consumers.
• We have a large group of satisfied owners, who are already highly engaged with the brand and online talking about it. Social media is another way to support a mutually beneficial relationship.

Sarah: As “SleepNumberSara” I’ve learned there are a lot of owners actively talking about and promoting the Sleep Number bed on Twitter, and the recommendation by a community or network carries a lot of weight in the consideration and purchase process. I’ve enjoyed connecting with consumers to gather testimonials, answer questions from potential buyers, troubleshoot issues, and ensure they have a quality experience with our product.

LeeAnn: From a personal perspective, I’ve become a Tweeter because it’s a tool to help me connect with other communications professionals, colleagues, friends and news resources every minute of the day. And, I do mean every minute! While external social media does not fall into my day-to-day Select Comfort responsibilities, I have an overwhelming interest and need to share my knowledge and serve on the “truth squad.” We have great products and I want to help people understand how each of the personalized products work.

Sarah: Through my personal Twitter account, I’ve learned that Twitter is a great resource to stay-up-to-date on news, trends and to maintain relationships. But it still doesn’t beat reading the Wall Street Journal or talking face-to-face with friends and colleagues. I love the ability to read my feed between meetings and conference calls, but no form of technology will replace the importance of face-to-face communication. On that note, happy hour anyone?

LeeAnn: I’ve learned many things about my community through Twitter but so far the most important lesson is to provide worthwhile content. My tweets reach beyond sleep and Sleep Number products. I speak to my personal life as UptownGirlMpls – sharing how to maintain a great quality of life within the Twin Cities as a single, 20-something who is active in her community. And as an Uptown community advocate, I’m always game for happy hour. ;)

Unfortunately, like many companies, Select Comfort has had to layoff staff recently. From some of our previous discussions, I know you have used social media tools internally as part of your strategy to communicate with staff and open up two-way dialogues. What tools did you use and what kind of response did you hear from employees?

LeeAnn/Sarah: We have many internal communication vehicles including a weekly e-newsletter, regular voicemail and e-mail communications, and an internal blog. One of the company’s goals is to foster true engagement. To help us reach this goal, it’s important that employees feel real ownership of the company. So, we created a company blog.

Our internal blog is a place where all employees have a voice. It helps to foster communication not only across the company, but across the country. New, relevant and important information is posted by contributors from all areas and levels within the company. And, we encourage all employees to comment, share ideas and engage in conversation. Ultimately, the blog is an importance resource for employees. A place where they can give and receive information that will help everyone feel true ownership.

Sarah: As a side note to our answer, I’d like to add that as a fairly new Select Comfort employee, I really appreciated the open communication and dialogue – especially during the past two months. The communication has truly helped foster great conversations, and has increased employee confidence and morale via our internal blog, brown bags and other employee engagement activities.

Staying on that topic for a minute. There are plenty of case studies online featuring companies that are using social media tools with external audiences. However, there aren’t nearly as many when it comes to internal audiences. In your experience, what’s the biggest challenge in using these tools to foster productive conversations and build community with employees vs. customers and external stakeholders?

LeeAnn/Sarah: In our experience, the biggest challenge to foster productive conversations is getting ALL employees to comment and engage in dialogue. We know there are many readers of the blog and the next step is to activate more voices. Our employees are passionate about the product, company’s success and display a personal commitment each and every day. The conversations are always productive and honest. We are working to bridge the gap between retail field and home office participation. While the retail employee base is larger than corporate employees, it’s a goal of ours in 2009 to evolve it to be more tailored. We have such different internal audiences that one tool is never absolutely perfect for everyone.

I know you’re both big supporters of PRSA and professional development. What have you found to be the biggest benefits of your involvement with the Minnesota chapter? And what is the one thing you learned this past year as a result of your involvement with this organization?

LeeAnn/Sarah: We both agree that we wouldn’t be where we are today without PRSSA and PRSA.

LeeAnn: The biggest benefit I’ve found in our local Chapter is overwhelming support. We have a great community of public relations professionals who take care of each other. My mentors are PRSA professionals who have connected me with many opportunities and helped develop my career path. In the last year as co-chair of the Student Relations committee, I’ve learned how to be a better leader by managing through change – listening to my committee, balancing workload and making decisions together.

Sarah: As a relatively new PR professional, it’s been wonderful and beneficial to have a nurturing community and a network of great professionals to learn from. I feel very fortunate to have great PRSA mentors and friends who have supported and shaped my career.

During the past year I’ve been a PRSSA president and a Classics committee member. Although both positions are very different, I’ve learned a similar theme; volunteering my time to help others is the best way to give back to the PR community that gave me so much. As there is constant change and learning opportunities associated with being an active PRSA member, I’ve also learned to become more adaptable to change.

You both played lead roles in your respective PRSSA chapters (Sarah at the University of Minnesota and LeeAnn at the University of St. Thomas—both
Dr. Willard Thompson Scholarship award winners, by the way) so you understand the value of effective leadership. As we continue to struggle in this rough-and-tumble economy, what are three characteristics you believe every leader should possess?

Sarah: I think a leader should posses 1) a genuine passion and excitement for the team members and the team’s goals, 2) good listening skills for open two-way communication, to identify emerging ideas/trends and gauge group morale and 3) have an overall vision for the group and the confidence to make quality decisions.

LeeAnn: Adaptability – not just during difficult economic conditions but always. As communications professionals there is constant change and without becoming adaptable to change, it’s difficult to grow and succeed. Social media is a prime example. So many professionals have tried to ignore it -- but think of your audience; what are their needs and how can you help meet them? Be present in front of them; stop standing in the back waving your hand hoping they’ll see you.

Humor – without it, we’re toast. Sometimes it’s difficult to see the positive within a situation. But to operate without warmth or a way to connect to others does not help. Commit to optimism and focus on what you can control.

Keen listening skills – when things are tough all you hear is noise. The buzz about what to do next, questions to establish accountability and determining what the solve is. Now more than ever it’s important to use your listening skills. To hear the real question and concern, and tune into what your constituents are asking of you. To be an effective communications leader, you need to listen before establishing the course.

As companies think about integrating social media into their marketing and PR mix, some believe these tools are just for high-tech or high-profile consumer companies. You convinced a bedding retailer and mattress manufacturer to give it a try. How did you do it?

LeeAnn/Sarah: Select Comfort uses Twitter and other social media to not only spread the word about the benefits of the Sleep Number bed, but we also create genuine relationships with our owners while providing them with value.

We provide metrics that define our success with every communications tactic used. The same goes for social media. If we can measure what we implement, generate positive results and be cost efficient, it makes for a winning case with our senior leaders.

As technologies evolve, what remains the same is our great product and our owners genuine excitement to talk about it. Whether offline or online, we enjoy being involved in that conversation. Technology is one communications vehicle; it’s the connection that’s important.

The PR Industry: Trusted business advisors or glorified party planners?

2009-02-02T18:36:00.001-08:00

A few days ago, I found myself in a good discussion with my PR colleague Allan Schoenberg around the legitmacy of public relations as an industry. Allan was lamenting that yet another network TV series this winter may portray the PR profession in a somewhat negative light. I immediately responded by saying this has been going on for years (Sex in the City, Spin, PoweR Girls, for example) and that it doesn't help our cause as we fight the good fight for a seat at the proverbial "table."

Allan's response surprised me: "I actually think shows like Sex in the City legitimize the PR industry by highlighting it in a very public way" (I'm summarizing--Allan, correct me if I'm wrong).

Hmm...what do you think? See, I tend to think every time one of these shows characterizes a PR professional as a flak or glorified party planner that we lose a little bit of credibility with our clients. They might not come out and say it--heck, they might not be every consciously thinking it. But I think shows like these affect people's perceptions and attitudes toward our industry at the very least.

Now, I know at the core, we need to earn our client's respect by the work we produce and the counsel we offer day in and day out. That's a given. But, I can't help but wonder if these shows still have a negative impact on an industry that's worked so hard to legitimize itself over the years.

What do you think? Are we still seen as party planners and spinsters by our clients? Or, are we making progress? Do the clients we work with see us as true advisors and business partners--the same way they do their attorneys and financial counselors?

Where do you stand?

Twin Cities PR/communications pros online

2009-02-02T06:55:00.000-08:00

As promised, below you'll find the updated list of Twin Cities communicators online (Twitter and blogs). With your help, this list grew massively from just last month.

Again, standard disclaimer: This is by no means meant to be an end-all-be-all list. It's a work-in-progress and a resource for us all. So please, if you know someone I've missed, please leave a comment below or DM and I'll add their name, Twitter handle and/or blog to the list. My plan is to update this list and re-publish every month so we have a definitive, running online catalog of all Minnesota PR/communications blogs and Twittizens.

Blogs

www.beehivepr.biz (Waxings--authored by various Beehive staffers)
www.mnprblog.com
www.samerowdycrowd.wordpress.com
www.marketingpie.risdall.com (authored by various RMPR staffers)
www.dailyaxioms.com (authored by Tim Otis and other Axiom staff)
www.fasthorseinc.com (authored by various FH staffers)
www.providentpartners.net.blog (authored by Albert Marruggi)
www.toprankblog.com (authored by Lee Odden)
www.conniebensen.com (authored by Connie Bensen)
www.getfreshminds.com (authored by Katie Konrath)
www.socialstudiesblog.com (Shandwick PR/social medial blog)
www.providentpartners.net/blog/ (authored by Albert Marruggi and Mike Keliher at Provident Partners)
http://abovethebuzz.wordpress.com (Sterling Cross blog)
http://prmoxie.wordpress.com (Sterling Cross blog)
http://mediapirate.wordpress.com (Sterling Cross blog)
http://e-strategyblog.com/ (blog by David Erickson)
http://social-media-university-global.org/ (authored by Lee Aase)
http://prchickspov.blogspot.com/ (authored by Heather Schwartz)

Twitter

www.twitter.com/graemethickins (GTA Marketing)
www.twitter.com/jenkaneco (Jennifer Kane--Kane Consulting)
www.twitter.com/stephaniesnyder (Padilla Speer Beardsley)
www.twitter.com/annehendricks (Fairview)
www.twitter.com/patrickstrother (Strother Communications Group)
www.twitter.com/timotis (Axiom Communications)
www.twitter.com/aprilnel (April Nelson--Weber Shandwick)
www.twitter.com/mjkeliher (Mike Keliher--Provident Partners)
www.twitter.com/jeffshelman (Augsburg College)
www.twitter.com/albertmaruggi (Provident Partners)
www.twitter.com/katiekonrath
www.twitter.com/karyd (Kary Delaria--KD Public Relations)
www.twitter.com/asdeos (Anthony Deos--Target)
www.twitter.com/leeodden (TopRank Online Marketing)
www.twitter.com/cbensen (Connie Bensen--Techrigy)
www.twitter.com/reinan (John Reinan--FastHorse)
www.twitter.com/bskogrand (Brant Skogrand--Risdall McKinney Public Relations)
www.twitter.com/bmjewell (Bridget Jewell--Mall of America)
www.twitter.com/jasonsprenger (Xiotech)
www.twitter.com/saramasters (Minneapolis Synod)
www.twitter.com/rebeccamartin (Beehive PR)
www.twitter.com/curtisrsmith (Carmichael Lynch)
www.twitter.com/beehivepr
www.twitter.com/sleepnumbersara (Sara Ryder--Select Comfort)
www.twitter.com/prchck123 (Heather Schwartz--Weber Shandwick)
www.twitter.com/evakeiser (Risdall McKinney Public Relations)
www.twitter.com/risdall
www.twitter.com/ekdao (Erika Dao--Mall of America)
www.twitter.com/uptowngirlmpls (LeeAnn Rasachak--Select Comfort)
www.twitter.com/knegs (Keith Negrin)
www.twitter.com/terrijellman (Tastefully Simple)
www.twitter.com/kellygroehler (Best Buy)
www.twitter.com/minnesotaprsa
www.twitter.com/azemke (Ayme Zemke--Beehive PR)
www.twitter.com/perfectporridge (Greg Swan--Weber Shandwick)
www.twitter.com/joel22882 (Joel Swanson--Risdall McKinney Public Relations)
www.twitter.com/laskaroy (Jared Roy-Risdall)
www.twitter.com/mnpr (Ryan May)
www.twitter.com/melanieBB (Melanie Boulay Becker)
www.twitter.com/kaz152 (Laura Kaslow)
www.twitter.com/jbagdade (Jennifer Bagdade)
www.twitter.com/jmaustin (Jon Austin)
www.twitter.com/teddavis (Ted Davis)
www.twitter.com/dawnbryant1029 (Dawn Bryant)
www.twitter.com/bloisolson (Blois Olson)
www.twitter.com/susanbusch (Susan Busch-Best Buy)
www.twitter.com/amyLFisher (Amy Fisher-Padilla Speer Beardsley)
www.twitter.com/lizmiklya (Liz Miklya)
www.twitter.com/ngarrison (Nicole Garrison-St Paul Pioneer Press)
www.twitter.com/allinaComm (comm pros at Allina)
www.twitter.com/publicrelations (Shelle Michaels)
www.twitter.com/TCStace (Stacy Housman-Ameriprise)
www.twitter.com/haker (David Hakensen)
www.twitter.com/mcporter (Mike Porter-University of St Thomas)
www.twitter.com/roseMcKinneyPR (Rose McKinney-Risdall McKinney PR)
www.twitter.com/gabbyDNelson (Gabby Nelson-Select Comfort)
www.twitter.com/bworden (Brooke Worden-Weber Shandwick)
www.twitter.com/tkpleslie (Kaleidoscope Partnership)
www.twitter.com/MinnesotaPRSA
www.twitter.com/mhwright (Michell Wright-Padilla Speer Beardsley)
www.twitter.com/RPMaus (University of Minnesota)
www.twitter.com/ryanmathre (University of Minnesota)
www.twitter.com/DJWolter (University of Minnesota)
www.twitter.com/egiorgi (University of Minnesota)
www.twitter.com/MrChristopherL (Sterling Cross Communications)
www.twitter.com/PRMoxie (Sterling Cross Communications)
www.twitter.com/MediaPirate (Sterling Cross Communications)
www.twitter.com/DancingQueen1 (Sarah Ryder-Select Comfort)
www.twitter.com/derickson (David Erickson)
www.twitter.com/leeaase (Lee Aase-Mayo Clinic)
www.twitter.com/mariaenergia (Maria Surma Manka)
www.twitter.com/heatherwestpr (Heather West)
www.twitter.com/dloumeyer (Andrew Meyer-North Memorial)
www.twitter.com/IntervalAdam (Adam Meyer-Interval Marketing)
www.twitter.com/IntervalChris (Chris Bevolo-Interval Marketing)

25 random things

2009-02-01T07:51:00.000-08:00

You've probably seen the meme going around on Facebook that asks you to list out "25 random things" about yourself. I posted mine initially a few days ago, but since then I've been tagged by a number of people, so instead of reposting on Facebook, I thought I'd post it here for everyone to see. After all, I'm an open book for the most part. Nothing to hide here.

And, in typical meme fashion, I'm going to tag five folks who I'm hoping to get to know better in 2009 and potentially meet in person (please economy come through for me!): Jen Wilbur (@rockstarjen), David Mullen (@dmullen), Matt Batt (@storyassistant), Lauren Fernandez (@cubanalaf) and my new friend, Amy Mengel (@amymengel).

1. I have a Blackberry but I have HUGE iPhone envy.

2. On that note, I'm a Mac guy. Always will be. I think you're either a Mac guy or you're an idiot. Just sayin'.

3. I'm a relatively smart guy, just don't ask me to do anything that involves a hammer, screwdriver or a table saw.

4. I spend WAY too much time on my computer every day. I cannot overstate this enough.

5. I'm a big wimp. Can't look at needles when they draw my blood. Had to leave room once when they gave my son a catheter. Seriously, they gave him a catheter when he was 3 months old. I still have bad dreams about that.

6. If it weren't for my wife, I'd be a walking pizza roll. Let's just say historically, I haven't had the best eating habits.

7. I need my Caribou coffee. Just started drinking a few years ago. Oddly, that's about the same time we had our first child.

8. I live for my kids. Love my wife. Can't believe how lucky I am each day to wake up to all of them.

9. I like having a broad network of friends instead of a few really close personal friends. Always been that way.

10. I played golf collegiately. Wasn't all that good but I did play in an NAIA national tournament.

11. I really didn't start my college experience until my senior year. Long story. But it led me to some of my best friends. No regrets.

12. I have wide-ranging music tastes. I can go from Disturbed to Journey to Johnny Cash to Jimmy Buffet in a 15 minute span.

13. I played in a "garage band" for a few years. And when I say "garage band" I mean five guys who had no idea what they were doing. Some very fun times though in Jay Troe's basement. Kinda miss that sometimes.

14. If I had to do it all over again (collegiately), I'd go to school at KU for all four years, take the hit and pay off the loans. And I'd teach and coach boys basketball and golf somewhere near KC, Charlotte, or San Diego. I'd also spend a semester abroad--missed out big time on that one. Of course, I'd be broke as hell, but it'd be a lot of fun.

15. If I had to do it all over again again (professionally), I'd start my career working for an agency like Fleishman or Shandwick, travel the world and settle into a cushy corporate job in my mid-30s. Do 'cushy corporate jobs' still exist? :)

16. I'm looking forward to teaching my kids the game of golf and playing many rounds with them as I grow older. Then again, they could wind up playing hockey. Damn Minnesota.

17. My favorite spot on earth: Honeymoon Beach on St John. We will retire there. Mark my words.

18. I've always wanted a boat. Don't know how to operate one. Don't know much about them. But every time I've been on one, I just feel like I was meant to be on the water. Can't really describe it. I need to act on this soon.

19. I'm a little bit of a video game nerd. Grew up on Track N Field, Qbert and Pitfall. Graduated to FIFA soccer and RBI baseball in my college years. These days it's all about Guitar Hero and MarioKart.

20. I hate MN winters. HATE. I know that's a strong word and I don't care. I HATE them. If it weren't for the fact that my entire network of friends and family leave within 30 miles of us, I would be out of here in a minute.

21. My dream job? Director of PR/communications for the PGA of America. Actually met the guy who performs this job three years ago at Medinah. Best. Job. Ever.

22. I'm a huge WI Dells rube. My Mom and Dad took us every summer growing up. Plan on doing the same with my kids. Love Noah's Ark.

23. I live with a lot of regrets, but I'm always hopeful about the future. Never more so than this year. So much opportunity ahead of us al in 2009.

24. I grew up in the suburbs and now live in the city. That's a microcosm of my life. I like to do things my way (Frankie style, baby!), not necessarily the way everyone else does it.

25. My dreams: Watch my kids grow up to be healthy, happy, productive human beings; live in St. John; live on a golf course at some point in my life; grow old with my wife; have at least three different careers by the time I'm 75.

A meeting about nothing--how to cut through the mindless minutiae

2009-01-31T12:22:00.000-08:00

We've all been there. Head into work. Got a full day planned. You're going to strategize. Brainstorm new ideas that will help the organization build brand, influence key audiences and drive revenues. And meet with key executive leaders to start initiating plans to executing on these outstanding ideas.

Then, it hits. The minutiae.

You get called into a meeting. The topic/agenda is sketchy at best. You're listening, but really only half listening. They're talking about implications of changing our HR benefits from one vendor to another. Or, how we're going to switch payment systems or operating platforms in 2009. Or, whatever. It's boring. It's low value. But it's necessary and you have to do it.

Or, do you?

Should we, as communications and marketing leaders, really be spending our time in these kinds of meetings and consulting and engaging with organizational partners around this kind of work? Is the work worth your time? If you worked for an agency, would your manager want you spending your time on this project?

These are the kinds of questions I, and I believe many other marketers and communicators struggle with daily.

Are we really spending enough time on the high-value work? The work that really matters? If it doesn't impact or tie directly to your organization's goals or strategies, should you be working on it? Isn't that what our employers and clients pay us to do?

So what can we do? A few ideas:

* Start saying no to "those" meetings. You heard me. Say no. Pretty simple, really. I'm not talking about the client meetings where you're presenting new ideas, discussing key initiatives or talking about plans for a major campaign. I'm talking about the meetings with no agendas. The ones where you know no work product will come as a result. The ones that feel like a meeting about another meeting--you know what I'm talking about. You need to get out of those meetings pronto.

* Be "slippery". This one's key. One of my favorite people in the PR biz, a good friend and mentor of mine is terrific at being slippery. She's made a habit of letting the low-value, non-critical work slide off her allowing her ample time to focus on key areas like strategic planning, coaching key executives and other high-value work. Sure, she handles some administrative duties and sits in a few dull meetings from time to time, we all do. But it's a pittance compared to the time she spends on the high-value work.

* Support your team. Junior staffers often feel unable to push back on client demands, putting them in a tough situation. They need to know you will back them up if they push back on the client and not leave them in a lurch. Make sure you take the time to sit down with these team members and reinforce that they're doing the right thing and that you feel the same way. If these folks feel empowered, they will be able to consult more effectively and free up more time to focus on the right work.

* Consult--don't take orders. If the client asks for a message they feel needs to be out right away, ask a few questions. Why do you feel it needs to be distributed immediately? What's your goal with this message? What are you hoping your audience will think/feel/do? Usually by asking a few questions and getting into the nitty-gritty behind the "why" of the ask, you can push the timeline back a bit, consider an alternative approach or stay status quo. All of which can prevent you from spending wasted time on the initial request.

What do you think? Any other tips to add? Whatever you suggest will benefit us all--we need to get out of this minutiae business.

Resource: #healthcomm chat participants

2009-01-27T18:16:00.000-08:00

Quick resource for those who'd like to join the #healthcomm chat Sundays from 8-9 p.m. CST. Below is a list of participants from the first chat on Sunday, Jan. 25. Please comment below to add your name to the mix. I'll keep a running list and publish every other week.

Next #healthcomm chat will be Sunday, Feb. 8, 8-9 p.m. CST. Hope to see you there!

@danamlewis
@arikhanson
@2healthguru
@zanesafrit
@tstitt
@eilsmi
@sbradley3
@philbaumann
@sarahzaenger
@heatherhuhman
@addykujawa
@chrisboyer
@boehringer
@alecjr
@stevenbarley
@lynnmcfarlane
@redrockette
@shwen
@talstonedj
@rainesmaker
@cybersibesk
@mjcostajr
@jonnew
@edbennett
@medicalstudent
@mariancutler
@kellyferrara
@meducate
@billfer
@danfuoco
@tomokeefe1
@cmpr

Twitter 101 for PR pros

2009-01-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

In chatting with a few colleagues over coffee and at recent PRSA events, I've heard a common theme emerge: a distinct need for Twitter 101 for PR pros. For every David Mullen, Danny Brown or Sarah Evans that understands the nuances of Twitter and how to use it, there are thousands of PR pros out there that still just don't get it. But, they want to learn.

Hey, I'm no Dave Fleet or Peter Shankman, but I think I have a decent understanding of the basics and I thought I'd share some of the tips and tricks I've learned along the way to getting started on Twitter:

* Knock off the basics first. Set up your account by clicking on the "Get Started" button on the main Twitter site. Fill out the basic contact information. Then, work out the details of your account:

* Find a good photo or head shot of yourself to use as your avatar. Make sure it's a photo that makes you look approachable. Remember, Twitter's kinda like online dating--people are going to follow others who look friendly and approachable. Plus, you want to put your best foot forward on behalf of your clients and the organization's you represent (if that's how you're engaging).

*Don't get too cute with your Twitter "handle" (name). I'd suggest the first name/last name approach. Keep it simple. Easier for others--including journalists and other key stakeholders--to identify you in the Twitterverse that way.

* Make sure you fill out the "Web" and "Bio" portions of your profile. For the "Web" link, use your LinkedIn profile if you don't have a blog or Web site. Most folks want to know more about you when they follow you. Make it as easy as possible for them.

* Who to follow? Once you have your account/profile set up, start thinking about who you'd like to follow. There are a few ways to do this:

* Use Twitter Search. Easy way to find people with similar interests. Search by industry, product, service, etc. Find the people you want to connect and share with, learn from and listen to.

* Find journalists within your industry/areas of interest to follow. One good resource: http://mediaontwitter.pbwiki.com/. (thanks Sarah Evans!)

* If you read blogs in your industry/niche regularly, search the blog rolls for folks who might be on Twitter. Most bloggers have links to their Twitter page right on their blog.

* Raid the followers of your first follows. Once you've identified a few folks to follow, take a peek at the folks who follow them or people they follow. You can find this information on the right hand side under "Following."

* If you're in MN, and you're looking for other PR tweeps to follow, you'll find a slew of Twitter handles for local PR/communications pros using a list I recently created, which has been supplemented from folks across the Twin Cities.

* Lurk, then engage. OK, now you've got a few people to follow (and soon, hopefully a few followers of your own). Before you start engaging, I'd suggest "lurking" for a while. Maybe for a few weeks or so. Read other people's tweets. Get to know them--read their bios and blogs (especially important with media--just like "offline" media relations). Just observe how others are acting and behaving on Twitter. After a few weeks, start posting your own tweets. But, make sure you have a strategy first. What kinds of information are you going to tweet? Will it be professional? Personal? A mix (what I recommend--humanizes you, makes you more approachable). How often will you tweet? More importantly, though, start responding to others. Do this by hovering over the right-hand side of each tweet. You'll see a curved arrow--that's the @ button. Click on that and you'll reply to that person's tweet. Keep in mind, if you go this route, everyone that's following you can see your response. Want to keep it more private? Go with a DM. Find this button on the right-hand side under @Replies. By using DM, your tweet to that person is private and only they can view it (DMs more appropriate for pitches to journalists). Replies and DMs are the lifeblood of Twitter. Use them often to engage in conversations. I try to keep the 80/20 rule on Twitter. 80 percent of my time is spend replying and DMing fellow tweeps. The remaining 20 percent is spent generating my own tweets.

* Be yourself. Some of my favorite people in the Twitterverse are also some of the most funny--and I've never met them face-to-face. People like Danny Brown, David Mullen, Amber Naslund and Scott Hepburn crack me up daily. They also come across as real, genuine people. I think that has a huge impact on your success online--even if you are representing your organization. Don't be afraid to share who you are. How do you pull this off? Create a mix of tweets that reflect your professional thinking and your personal life. The best way to connect with people is to give them a glimpse into your life. If they find something you have in common, they will reach out, connect and share.

Up next, Twitter 201--taking it to the next level (including using favorites, building communities and other Twitter applications to use).

Any additional tips for PR Twitter beginners? What's missing from this list for first-timers?

Photos courtesy of: wboswell, seydoggy and Steve Woolf.

PR Rock Stars: A conversation with Lee Aase

2009-01-20T18:52:00.000-08:00

When you work in the close-knit Minnesota health care PR/communications community, it's almost impossible not to know Lee Aase. He's widely known as a strong advocate of social media (I initially met Lee at a Ragan conference on social media presented by Shel Holtz back in June) and a pro's pro in the media relations and public affairs arena.

As manager of social media and syndication at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Lee's helped this world-class organization foster and grow a strong community of loyal Mayo patients across the world who are more than happy to share their stories. In fact, Mayo counts on it. More than any other medium or communications vehicle, Mayo relies heavily on its patients to spread their stories of the outstanding care they received to others across the globe.

Interestingly enough, Lee and Mayo took yet another step in their social media journey this morning when they launched their new blog, Sharing Mayo Clinic. Designed as a way for patients and employees to share their stories about what makes Mayo Clinic unique, the new blog is another addition to an already impressive social media lineup that Lee has helped engineer the last few years. A Mayo Clinic YouTube channel, a Twitter account and multiple blogs and podcasts.

The other interesting thing about Lee: he's a chancellor. That's right. A little over two years ago, Lee started Social Media University Global as a way to help PR and communications pros learn about the burgeoning world of Web 2.0. The site is set up like an online university, complete with a full curriculum, videos of the "campus" (read: Lee's home) and tuition and financial aid. Tongue-in-cheek references aside, the site has been a great way for Lee to help educate PR professionals on the ins and outs of social media.

Clearly, Lee is a PR Rock Star. He's also a member of the famed Blog Council, so pay attention folks. And if you're not following him, start now.

Historically, the health care industry has been slow to adopt new communications tools and technologies. Yet, Mayo Clinic is on Twitter, has its own YouTube channel, Facebook group page, and multiple podcasts and blogs. How did you go about educating your internal stakeholders and building consensus around the merits of social media to your overall communications plan?

Word of mouth has always been the most important way for people to find out about Mayo Clinic. So we've emphasized that social media are just the new way word of mouth happens. We also had two external consultants, Shel Holtz and Andy Sernovitz, come to Mayo to speak and hold workshops to engage our broader Public Affairs department and through that our leadership.

How are you using social media tools at Mayo Clinic to listen to your patients and their thoughts, concerns and ideas? Any examples of instances where you've taken action based on something you heard from a patient through one of your blogs, podcasts or videos?

With our Facebook page, it's been wide open for patients to share their thoughts, and we're launching a new blog this week (Thursday) called Sharing Mayo Clinic where we likewise will be giving patients the opportunity to share their stories and their feedback about their experiences. We had a blog last year for our employee patient population that was related to our Mayo ExpressCare service (a walk-in retail clinic), and through the blog we got feedback on some issues we needed to address...specifically, because the demand was so much stronger than we expected, we needed to add more staff, modify some procedures and accelerate the plans for a second clinic.

How has the social media landscape changed the way you work with the media? Do you still work with traditional media outlets? How are you interacting with bloggers? Are you eschewing traditional channels to tell you story directly to your patients and other key audiences?

Social media tools make it easier for us to provide audio and video resources to traditional media, as well as to bloggers. After the stories come off embargo, those same resources are made available directly to patients. Working with traditional media is still extremely important, but sometimes we do a post on our news blog instead of a full-scale news release because we can do it more quickly and still provide improved resources for journalists.

Physicians, by and large, are not individuals that have a lot of time on their hands. Yet we all know blogs, podcasts and video interviews require time and commitment from subject matter experts like them to succeed. How do you manage those competing demands and keep these key stakeholders engaged in the process?

Our main strategy is to use video blogs, so our physician experts can answer questions on camera. We prefer that our surgeons use their hands for operating instead of typing. By using video, they can talk about their research as they would to a patient instead of taking time to write. It becomes a 10-15 minute interview instead of a lengthy writing exercise. This also proves that the physician participation is genuine and not ghost-written, because the blog viewers see the experts speaking for themselves. The level of ongoing interaction in the comments varies among the physicians, with some choosing to engage directly and others preferring to do summary responses based on the general tone of comments.

You started with your Medical Edge podcast back in September 2005 and have grown your use of social media tools extensively the last three-plus years. Any key lessons you've learned along the way?

Starting with something that's already approved for distribution to radio stations made it less controversial; it was getting another use for the same product. Then we continued to find ways to produce content tailored to the medium (i.e. longer podcasts) in a cost-effective way, as part of our TV production process. It's also helpful to have outside experts share the state-of-the-art with leadership, to validate that other companies and organizations are getting into social media without having major problems. The worst fears are almost never realized; everyone has nightmare scenarios, but you shouldn't let them paralyze you and keep you from seizing the potential (and much more likely) benefits.

Now the tough question--how have these tools helped Mayo Clinic further its vision and achieve its organizational goals? How do you measure results?

We look at traffic to our sites, comments, appointment requests coming through our social media platforms, and also how having these electronic resources has helped us better serve journalists and get coverage in traditional media. The activities would be worthwhile based solely on the increase in traditional media coverage, but we see significant word-of-mouth benefit too.

Do you have a board of directors?

2009-01-14T09:29:00.000-08:00

After an interesting dialogue with Scott Hepburn recently about selling and merging Twitter accounts (he actually posted his Twitter account on Craig's List earlier this week), I got to thinking, as the CEO of my Twitter account, blog and professional life, do I need a board of directors to advise me, bounce ideas off and keep me in check?

Absolutely.

Just like a "real" CEO, I need counsel and a reality check from time to time. And I definitely need guidance around how to proceed in certain situations--advice on a potential career move, discussions around how to approach a challenge with a client or ideas/best practices to integrate into a PR/communications plan I'm putting together. I need a cadre of savvy counselors who can guide me on my journey, just like a CEO.

Turns out, I already have it. Informally, at least.

For me, it's a combination of former managers, mentors, colleagues and people I just really respect and trust. I'm not going to call out my board members by name, but rest-assured I call on them regularly for advice and help. Of course, I collaborate and get thoughts from my entire network of colleagues, friends and family as well (including folks I've met on Twitter), but I really rely on my board--those folks I've come to truly know and trust--for the big-picture thinking and savvy advice.

What about you? Do you have an informal board of directors? How often do you meet with them? If not, do you have a plan to start something similar in 2009? Why or why not?

PR Rock Stars: A conversation with David Mullen

2009-01-12T18:05:00.000-08:00

About a month ago when I started engaging more actively on Twitter, one of the first folks I met was David Mullen. Man, was I lucky.

Right from the get-go, despite his enormous popularity, David's been approachable, accomodating with my questions and requests, and friendly. After multiple conversations online, we've discovered we have a lot in common (two young kids, passion for blogging and a spirited interest in PR and integrated marketing and communications).

Bottom line: David represents many of the key reasons I continue to devote so much time to blogging and engaging through online channels. He shares. He advocates. He collaborates. In fact, I feel like I learn a little nugget from him virtually every time we interact. So many smart people out here. And today, I'd like to share with you all a little more about David--what makes him tick, how he manages it all and who he follows regularly online--as the first installment in an ongoing "PR Rock Stars" conversation series. Oh, and if you aren't already, start following David on Twitter and visit his blog.

1-You're a busy guy. Two kids at home. Full-time job at Mullen. You're active on Twitter. You blog regularly. I'm assuming you have a healthy array of hobbies. How do you balance it all?

I'm not going to lie. It's really tough to balance work and family alone most of the time without even tossing hobbies and social media stuff in the mix. Twitter doesn't really take up that much time for me since I quickly dip in and out throughout the day. Blogging, on the other hand, does require some decent time.

There was only one way to add blogging to the plate and not sacrifice time with my wife and daughters. The vast majority of work done on my blog falls between the hours of 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. after everyone else in the house is asleep. It's wreaked a bit of havoc on my sleep schedule, especially since our youngest girl wakes up around 6 a.m. every day, but you do what you've got to do. Actually, the great thing about that was that it made me decide very quickly if I was serious about blogging or not.

2-I heard you mention at some point that you started your blog six months ago. Since then, you've evolved into a social media luminary online. Any advice for those aspiring to position themselves as authorities in different disciplines online?

You're way too kind. I'll leave the luminary title to Chris Brogan, Amber Naslund and a few other fine folks. My advice would be to blog about what you know and love, and find an angle on it that's a bit different from everyone else.

For example, I'm passionate about social media, but there are a LOT of already established bloggers who tackle that topic with much more background in the space than me. What I know really well is PR and integrated marketing. I write about social media from time-to-time on my blog, but the majority of time is spent on PR and integrated communications generally.

What I noticed about other PR bloggers is that many write about PR industry news and such. What I've done to have a different voice is regularly challenge the way we PR types do business to make sure we're doing things because they are the right way to do them, not simply because it's the way it's always been done. Challenging our profession in a positive way led to a lot of great comments on my posts, even early on, and solid growth in readers and subscribers.

3-You're a pretty savvy "Twittizen." Who are your "must follows"? Who do you make sure to check in with regularly? And whose blogs do you make a point of reading and commenting on each day?

Ah, you're going to make me name names... There are so many great folks I follow and I know I'm going to leave some off. But here are some of my "must follows," for various reasons. By the way, I'm leaving off the obvious A-listers (though a couple of these are inches away from that status). Those folks are pretty easy to find on Twitter.

@ambercadabra, @bethharte, @shannonpaul, @scottmeis, @sonnygill, @kellyecrane, @scotthepburn, @abneedles, @bradmays, @cubanaLAF, @evanspatrick, @rockstarjen, @dannybrown, @prjack, @susanisk, @researchgoddess and, of course, one of my new favorites @arikhanson.

I don't get to read as many blogs as I'd like or comment nearly as often as I should, but my must-read blogs right now are Amber Naslund, Shannon Paul, Chris Brogan, Danny Brown, Leo Bottary, Todd Defren, Jason Falls and Mack Collier. On the personal side, I also follow Desiring God , The Just Life, and The Resurgence. There are others that I read regularly, but these are the ones I read most often. I also get pointed to a lot of great posts by my Twitter peeps.

4-In your day job at Mullen, how have you been counseling clients who want to get into the social media space because "everyone else is jumping in?" How are you advising these folks to be prudent and strategic in their decision-making instead of taking the "me too" approach? Any best practices to offer?

I ask them a lot of questions during the first discussion that not only provide me with insight about their motivations, but also require them to stop and think about why they're interested. After getting all the answers out in the open, it's usually obvious to everyone if we're looking at social media tools as a strategic addition to our overall communications or if we've come down with Shiny Object Syndrome. It sounds simple, but asking the right questions - even if you already know the answer to some of them - can change a conversation.

5-Lastly, you mentioned the other day you paid off your second car and that you now have no payments. Nice. So, I'm guessing that means you won't be in the market for a new car anytime soon. However, if you were, what would be your dream automobile?

We are definitely NOT in the market for a new one car anytime soon! But if I could pick any set of wheels, it would either be a 1957 Chevy Truck, a 1956 Porsche 356 or an Aston Martin Vantage. Which car would depend on how I felt that day and whether or not my wife was with me.

7 Life Lessons and Professional Pointers You can Learn from Twitter

2009-01-06T14:33:00.001-08:00

I'll admit, I'm a relative rookie when it comes to Twitter. I just started really participating and engaging a few weeks ago. But, in that short amount of time, I feel like I've learned as much or more than I have during entire college courses. Or, even some of my post-grad classes for that matter. Hey, Chris Brogan said it best--maybe you don't have to go back to school to hone certain key skills you need for your dream job today.

Since my primary MO is sharing, collaborating and connecting on- and off-line, I thought I'd share with you the life lessons and professional practices you can learn--as I have this last month--by engaging with others using this tool:

1--Twitter will make you a better writer. Writing in 140-word chunks forces you to communicate more efficiently and effectively. It makes you a great headline writer, which is only going to become more important as brevity is stressed more and more in the online--and offline--communications world. Twitter also forces you to write interesting, engaging copy--you know the kind you should be writing for your clients and organizations? If your tweets aren't engaging and interesting, people simply won't read them and engage with you. Wow, seems like I've heard that before somewhere...

2--Connect and collaborate with today's great minds. You would be so lucky to have the opportunity to collaborate and learn from great minds like Chris Brogan, Shel Holtz, Jason Falls and Geoff Livingston. And those are just a few of the luminaries in the social media/communications industry. What about finance? Or, health care? Or, technology? They're out there folks. On Twitter, you can connect with these thought leaders instantly in 140 characters. Believe me, these people are more approachable and open to conversation than you might think. Try them.

3--Be a sponge. A big, fat, ready-to-take on the world, kinda sponge. Soak in information as fast as you can take it in. I participated in Sarah Evans' remarkable and wildly successful Journcat last night. With a non-stop stream of tweets running by at warp speed, it was tough to keep up. But, I tried to gather and learn what I could, connect with a few folks, throw in my two cents and move on (One of my lame tweets even landed on her "Top Tweets" list--Sarah, I'm blushing now...) Always remember: Do more listening and learning and less shouting and preaching and you'll do fine.

4--Twitter can make you a happier person. Yes, psychology majors, you read that right. OK, so I may be over-stating it a little, but I find myself laughing at many tweets throughout the day. Just follow @ambercadabra, @darthvader or @skydiver for a while--you'll laugh. Trust me. Doesn't laughing make you happier? I've also met a boatload of people from everywhere from New Hampshire to Australia to Utah on Twitter. Doesn't connecting with new people and building those relationships make you happy? Or, use Twitter to help others. Just look what @armano did last night on Twitter--helped raise more than 4K in two hours (running total is now around 11K, I hear) for a family in desperate need. Amazing.

5--Twitter will help you hone your "pitch" skills. If you're in the media relations game, you know what I mean. When you pitch a reporter or blogger on a story idea you have to do a little research before crafting your pitch, right? You need to find out what makes the reporter tick. What he or she writes about. What they're interested in. Twitter's the same way. Before connecting with others on Twitter, take a few minutes to review their profile and read their blog. Find out where they went to school and if they have any special interests. Mention some of those things in your tweet. It's the same skills--different arena. One more thing: reporters appreciate it when you send them a personal note after they've written a great story, right? Again, same principle holds true in Twitterville. Retweet a follower's recent post. Or, just send them a nice tweet saying how much you've enjoyed connecting with them. Makes all the difference in the world.

6--Twitter: The new post-grad degree. Of course, it's not all about Twitter. It's about the conversations you have, the connections you build, the stories you share. It's also about what you put into it--blog posts you write, comments you provide on other blogs, videos and podcasts you develop. Think you can learn all that in a classroom right now and in the next six months to a year? I'm not saying post-secondary education isn't useful or a smart thing to do. I'm just saying tools like Twitter now give YOU the keys to your future. Take it. Run with it. You might like where you go.

7--Be yourself on Twitter. Isn't that the first rule of dating? C'mon ladies, help me out here. I know it's been a while since I've been in the dating game, but I've always followed this mantra. Applies on Twitter, too. Be funny. Smart. Irreverent. Whatever. Just be who you are. People see right through the folks who are trying to be someone they're not--just like in the real world.

OK--your turn. What have you learned on Twitter? Any life lessons or professional tips you'd like to share?

Minnesota PR/Communications Pros online

2009-01-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

Over the last few weeks, I've been informally compiling a list of Minnesota-based PR and communications professionals who author blogs or are engaging on Twitter. Lately, I've found myself asking "Gee, I wonder if X is on Twitter." Or, "What other MN-based blogs can I link to or follow and learn from?"

After a handful of searches for a definitive resource/list, I continue to come up empty. So darn it anyway, I'm starting one myself.

This is by no means meant to be an end-all-be-all list. Instead, it's merely a starting point. So please, if you know someone I've missed, please leave a comment below or DM and I'll add it to the list. My plan is to update this list and re-publish every month so we have a definitive, running online catalog of all MN PR/communications blogs and Twittizens.

Blogs

www.beehivepr.biz (Waxings--authored by various Beehive staffers)

www.mnprblog.com

www.samerowdycrowd.wordpress.com

www.marketingpie.risdall.com (authored by various RMPR staffers)

www.axiom.blog.com

www.fasthorseinc.com (authored by various FH staffers)

www.providentpartners.net.blog

www.toprankblog.com

www.conniebensen.com

www.getfreshminds.com (authored by Katie Konrath)

Twitter

@graemethickins (GTA Marketing)

@jenkaneco (Jennifer Kane--Kane Consulting)

@stephaniesnyder (Padilla Speer Beardsley)

@annehendricks (Fairview)

@patrickstrother (Strother Communications Group)

@timotis (Axiom Communications)

@aprilnel (April Nelson--Weber Shandwick)

@mjkeliher (Mike Keliher--Provident Partners)

@jeffshelman (Augsburg College)

@albertmaruggi (Provident Partners)

@katiekonrath

@karyd (Kary Delaria--KD Public Relations)

@asdeos (Anthony Deos--Target)

@leeodden (TopRank Online Marketing)

@cbensen (Connie Bensen--Techrigy)

@reinan (John Reinan--FastHorse)

@bskogrand (Brant Skogrand--Risdall McKinney Public Relations)

@bmjewell (Bridget Jewell--Mall of America)

@jasonsprenger (Xiotech)

@saramasters (Minneapolis Synod)

@rebeccamartin (Beehive PR)

@curtisrsmith (Carmichael Lynch)

@beehivepr

@sleepnumbersara (Sara Ryder--Select Comfort)

@prchck123 (Heather Schwartz--Weber Shandwick)

@evakeiser (Risdall McKinney Public Relations)

@risdall

@ekdao (Erika Dao--Mall of America)

@uptowngirlmpls (LeeAnn Rasachak--Select Comfort)

@knegs (Keith Negrin)

@terrijellman (Tastefully Simple)

@kellygroehler (Best Buy)

@minnesotaprsa

@azemke (Ayme Zemke--Beehive PR)

@perfectporridge (Greg Swan--Weber Shandwick)

@joel22882 (Joel Swanson--Risdall McKinney Public Relations)

@laskaroy (Jared Roy-Risdall)

@mnpr (Ryan May)

Don't ignore your "offline" networks

2009-01-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

The other day I got a quick, early morning workout in at our neighborhood YMCA. I was a little surprised when I noticed nearly 80 percent of those working out were 70 or older. It was like a scene straight out of the 1980s hit "Cocoon" (OK, I'm dating myself now). Then, I started to notice the elderly gentleman working out on the treadmill next to me had a steady stream of visitors. The guy knew virtually every person who walked by. I immediately and affectionately dubbed him "the mayor."

Where am I going with this story?

This guy clearly has a very large social network. If he knows this many folks at the Y--how many do you think he knows at his local church? How big is his network of friends, former coworkers and extended family? I'm guessing it's huge. Remember, he's the "mayor."

Point is, as we invest significant time and energy in online networks and tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, it's wise not to forget the personal, "offline" networks we've built over the years. It's incredible to be able to connect with people like Danny Brown, Mack Collier and Sarah Evans in Twitterville. But, the lunches I had last week with my good friends Sara Masters and Brie Gunderson were just as important.

It's the same principles, but that face time makes all the difference. It's irreplaceable. It's no wonder you see Twitter relationships blossom after people meet at TweetUps or at conferences. I've noticed a few instances of this online recently--Shannon Paul, Amber Naslund, Liz Strauss and others connecting in Chicago. Mack Collier and other "tweeting up" in Hunstville. Once these folks meet in person, it cements the relationship. They're instantly more likely to provide advice. To point out interesting articles. And to help each other along the way.

So tonight, instead of spending an extra 30 minutes on Twitter or 20 minutes updating your Facebook status and sharing photos, try one of the following:

* Reach out to a former colleague, ask them to lunch and see what's new in their world.

* Call a member of your professional organization whom you've fallen out of touch with and find out how you can help them.

* Send a personal, handwritten note to a former manager and tell them how they made a difference in your professional life.

* Meet someone new by asking one of your current colleagues or partners to introduce you to a person in their network whom they think you may share common interests. Great way to expand and diversify your network.

* Always wanted to connect with someone at Google, Nike or Best Buy? Ask your people in your personal network if they know folks at these organizations. And if they do, would they mind brokering an introduction?

Building and nurturing these personal relationships will complement your online networks nicely and give you additional opportunities to learn, collaborate and share in 2009. And, in an economy like the one we're mired in now, that's more important than ever.

What about you? What will you do in the weeks ahead to solidify your offline networks? Any other tips to share?

Cast your vote for the best Twitter avatar

2009-01-01T18:15:00.000-08:00

How did you choose the pic for your avatar? Did you struggle with your choice? Did you go with a straight head shot? A cartoon? Or, maybe a random graphic?

Whatever the case, our avatars are a big part of our online persona on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. You make first impressions of people you meet face to face within a few minutes based largely on their physical appearance, right? Online, people base those same first impressions on your avatar--the only visual they may have at the time.

So, I thought we'd have some fun with this and find out who really does have the best Twitter avatar--at least, according to the Tweeple.

Here's the deal. Cast your vote by sending me a DM at www.twitter.com/arikhanson before midnight, CST, Saturday, Jan. 3.

As you consider your choices and cast your vote, there really are no hard-and-fast criteria. But, think about the creativity of the avatar. Does it make you laugh? Does it pique your interest? Is it mysterious? Does it make you want to follow that person and engage them in conversation?

That's it, really. Again, vote now by sending a DM to me at www.twitter.com/arikhanson. Deadline is midnight, Saturday, Jan. 3. I'll announce the winner on Sunday afternoon.

To get you started, here's a few avatars that have piqued my interest over the last few weeks:

* @armano--Anyone who wears a yellow cowboy hat is OK in my book.

* @darthvader--Classic. Vintage. Pure evil.

* @skydiver--How did he get that pic anyway?

* @chrisbrogan--Changed his avatar a few times lately. I like clean-shaven Chris a little better, myself.

* @mackcollier--Much debate lately about the hand on Mack's shoulder. Did we ever find out whose hand it was?

* @perfectporridge--Tip of the cap to one of the Twin Cities social media gurus. Creative execution.

* @prsarahevans--She just looks like the kind of person you want to be friends with, doesn't she?

* @tedmurphy--I'm both intrigued and a little frightened.

Four reasons Peter Shankman is a genius

2008-12-29T18:49:00.001-08:00

It's ridiculous to even infer that there is any limit to Peter Shankman's brilliance. For full disclosure, not he's not paying me. I'm not a long-lost relative. And I'm not a personal friend.

But I am a fan. A big fan.

For those of you who were online late last week, you know @skydiver held giveways literally every 10 minutes for those unfortunate souls stuck in the office on Christmas and the day after Christmas. Genius idea. Great for Shankman (he got to de-clutter his desk) and key to HARO's future success. Why?

1--He catered to his key audience. @skydiver now has 19,000-plus followers on Twitter. How many do you think were working Thurs/Fri? I'm guessing more than a few. How many of those folks work in media relations/PR? I can't speak for the media folks, but we PR peeps need all the free stuff we can get. Most importantly, he knew his audience of Tweeple would all be experiencing a slow work day so he'd have their undivided attention. He knew his audience, understood their frustrations (working on Christmas-big bummer) and needs (free stuff) and what would pique their interest. Hmmm...media relations colleagues, sound familiar?

2--He created a whole new legion of HARO followers, believers and advocates. If you visit shankman.com you'll see his first-hand account of his original plan for the giveaway and the initial reaction. After his announcement on Christmas Eve, he suddenly had 400 new Twitter followers. That's 400 more people to help spread the HARO message and further the HARO--and Shankman--brand. Pretty stellar result for someone who was just trying to de-clutter his desk by giving away some SWAG on a holiday.

3--He knows the word-of-mouth game. The brilliance behind this idea: the bulk of the folks who won those giveaways last week were media/PR types, right? Guess what the lion's share of media/PR types like to do? Communicate. Especially about products, services and experiences they've won recently. You're telling me whoever won that trip to Tahoe or those blacksmithing lessons isn't going to be talking about that to their friends, family and colleagues for the next six months. Great way to introduce the brands of the companies who donated items to the Tweeple masses and Shankman followers--creating a whole new slew of brand champions for these organizations.

4--He's not afraid to try new things. For a day-and-a-half, Peter held the giveaway all on Twitter. Enter @brianshaler. Suddenly, we had a live stream of "two guys and a couch" (if you followed, you understand that reference). For those of you who know or have met @skydiver, he's an engaging fellow, which is why the video was so powerful. In a matter of minutes, it went from online giveaway to interactive entertainment experience. Not all of it was riveting. But it was funny, human (you could actually see him realizing he messed up with the final answer) and honest (can't hide from the camera). In any case, the real lesson here is he wasn't afraid to try something new on the fly (fairly sure he wasn't planning to do that--then again, I could be wrong). As companies navigate this unsettled economy, they may start implementing strategies and tactics they once thought to be impossible, ineffective or risky to build their brands or jump-start revenues. Like Shankman, these organizations are going to take risks and try new approaches to reach their key audiences.

What do you think? Smart move by @skydiver? Lame self-promotional stunt? Typical Shankman? Or pure genius?

My New Year's Resolutions: Five things I resolve not to do in 2009

2008-12-28T09:56:00.001-08:00

As I thought about my resolutions for the new year, the garden variety goals came to mind: exercise more, eat better, spend more quality time with the kids, etc. But, there are a few others I've been kicking around that don't involve taking action. In fact, these five goals actually require a little different approach:

* I promise not to be "that guy"--Shannon Paul really put it best. As I continue to explore and engage in new social media tools online, I hope to build relationships within my preferred networks, be human (and hopefully, inspire a few laughs along the way), and promote others whenever possible. Not too tough, really.

* I won't have an intimate relationship with my Twitter account. Sometimes it seems we're all a little too close to our online activities. This was most evident to me over the long holiday weekend. Instead of spending quality time with the people that matter most to us, I noticed a number of folks active on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks online. Of course, I was out there, too (after all, how did I know the others were online?), so I'm just as guilty. But that's where my resolution comes in. Using Twitter, Facebook and other tools to develop relationships is great, but I also plan to get out of the house more and meet up with the great PR/marketing/communications minds in the Twin Cities in 2009, too. Nothing replaces good, old-fashioned face time.

* I won't do someting just because "that's the way we've always done it." This one applies not only to my professional life but my personal life. For example, I'm currently researching a way to listen to my music library throughout our home. Originally, I thought about the traditional approach and buying a new portable Bose Sounddock. But as I thought about it, what I really want is access to my expansive music collection in virtually every room of the house, without having to lug around the sounddock. I need a "wired" house--not a sounddock or a run-of-the-mill receiver and speakers. I'm guessing this is going to mean a fairly expensive trip to Best Buy in my near future. For business, this means not falling into the trap of taking the easy way out. I plan to challenge the status quo and never stop thinking of innovative solutions to my organization's communications challenges.

* I promise not to talk too much. Another goal with multiple applications. I need to be a better listener with my clients, my wife, my kids, my friends and my extended family in 2009. Why? Because good listeners are better friends, better dads, better husbands and better communicators. David Mullen seems to agree. Organizations should also make this a priority--listen more intently to your customers next year. Whether it's online through tools like Twitter or blogs or face-to-face through focus groups or personal one-on-one conversations, companies can learn a lot from their customers. Just ask Dell, Starbucks and Southwest Airlines.

* I will not go back to school. Ok that's an odd thing to say, right? Yeah, well I don't have an extra 15K lying around to pursue my MBA right now. Hey, you try it with two kids and 24K in annual daycare bills. What I will do, however, is passionately continue to learn. I hope to spend at least one hour online each night listening on Twitter, commenting on blogs I follow, developing my own blog content and discovering new tools. I plan to stay engaged in my local PRSA chapter as a board member where I've learned so much from so many smart people the last seven-plus years. And I plan to read feverishly. Books on my short list include Groundswell and Naked Conversations.

Those are my goals for 2009. What about you? What do you resolve not to do in the new year?

How are you cultivating your leadership skills?

2008-12-22T19:59:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me the other day--at most companies (with one notable exception) I've worked with over the years, managers have been promoted more based on technical ability than leadership qualities.

Shouldn't those two characteristics be flipped?

Yes, we need our managers to be proficient at their craft--whether it's writing, welding or producing widgets. But, more importantly, don't we need them to be leaders that are driving our organization's strategies and furthering our vision? Don't we need them to have critical change management skills that are so vital in an economy and climate like the one we're experiencing right now? Don't we need them to be leaders who can build high-performing teams and bring people together--not folks who polarize and enjoy alone time in their offices?

In reality, we need them to be all these things and more, which is why management positions are so challenging. There are so many demands on your time--prioritization and organization are at a premium. Plus, there's the whole other element of employee retention. Want to keep and develop your top talent? Better make sure employees respect and enjoy working with their manager. After all, what's the saying, "people don't leave jobs, they leave managers." Powerful.

One of our roles as communicators is to help managers foster their leadership abilities when it comes to change management, team building and communications skills. But, as we're helping them become better leaders through our insightful counsel, what can we do to improve our own leadership skills?

* Take a couple leadership classes. I'm not saying stop pursuing your advanced degree in your specialized field--I'm just saying consider taking a course to better prepare you for the people management side of your position. If you really think about it, how much of your day is spent building consensus, persuading and navigating relationships? Take that side of the job seriously--your employees do.

* Learn from leaders past and present. Pick a leader--whether it's one within your company or Barack Obama. Present day or years ago. Doesn't matter. Just select someone you respect--and a leader with a style you'd like to mimic. Maybe it's your CEO. Maybe it's FDR. Whatever the case, start studying this leader and their traits--how do they communicate? how do they present to groups/teams? how to they learn from their mistakes?

* Read at least three books on leadership this year. Start with Lincoln. And you won't struggle to find books about the man's renowned leadership abilities. Find a more contemporary version, too. And learn. Get a few different perspectives to help you get a better handle on your own leadership style.

We need online medicine--NOW!

2008-12-20T10:27:00.000-08:00

OK, I'll admit, I have a vested interest in this topic as an employee of Fairview Health Services and as someone who needs to visit a physician soon (I may or may not have broken my pinkie earlier this week). That said, as health care providers, insurance companies and government entities look for ways to transform the health care system, I make this plea: Make it happen--faster!

Why? Quite simply, the "Facebook generation" will demand it. Heck, I'm demanding it. And if my local provider can't figure it out soon, I'm going to Google for my health care needs (as soon as they figure it out, which I'm guessing should be any day now). Anyway, as always, I have a few ideas:

* Online chats with providers to address simple ailments. Similar to the MinuteClinic model, couldn't we develop a model where you could chat online with a doc by IM about basic ailments--ear infections, colds, broken pinkies, etc. Just identify a few physicians on a rolling schedule who would be responsible for connecting with patients online all day. One doc could actually interact with multiple patients at once. Why not--it's called multi-tasking, right? Not sure how we'd reimburse for care in this kind of model, but as has always been the case, industry would find a way.

* Health care Twitter feeds. Wouldn't you sign up to follow a Twitter account that fed you useful health care facts and tips? Five ways to help reduce the duration of your child's cold. Three tips to help you run more and suffer less from joint pain. You get the idea. The tweets could include a quick tip and "point" to a blog post for more information. Mayo Clinic (big surprise) is already doing this--kinda. Like that old public service statement, "the more you know..."

* Virtual visits with providers. We almost have the technology to pull this off now. Tools like Second Life are in relative infancy. When they mature, which is not as far off as you might think, this becomes a very real possibility. The other option--video conferencing. You could visit with your doctor through tools like Skype--look your doc in the eye, ask questions, show your doc a rash, etc. It could be fairly interactive using today's technology with the promise of a whole new experience in the future using virtual tools.

What are your thoughts?

Why you need to hire Curious George

2008-12-16T18:23:00.000-08:00

I'm here to tell you that you need to hire Curious George.

No, not the actual monkey. But people like Curious George. Whether you're building an agency or corporate communications department or rounding out your marketing team, you need more Curious George's on your squad.

Why?

* Curious people are innovators and trailblazers. Don't you want people like this on your team? People who constantly question the status quo and challenge decisions are more likely to help you improve processes, build better teams and drive results.

* Curious people are fast learners. In this climate of change, you need folks on your team who can learn new skills. Fast. When the winds of change shift within your organization, you need players who can move quickly and take on new roles and projects--work that often requires them to learn new skill sets at lightspeed.

* Curious people are early adopters. Think about Twitter. How many people do you know who use the tool? Would you consider them curious, by nature? Curious people have a desire--no, a need--to try new things and use new technologies before anyone else. These folks are not only adopting these new technologies faster than others, but they're also learning how to implement those tools in the right situations--before anyone else.

* Curious people have great client service skills. Inquisitive people ask more questions--and that's a valuable skill when dealing with clients. Asking questions and seeking additional information can help you identify needs, barriers and challenges when you're putting together marketing and communications plans with clients.

* Curious people are strong team players. Think about the last really good conversation you had with a friend or colleague. They probably asked you a bunch of questions to start the discussion, right? Curious people use questions to start conversations and build relationships. After all, the more you learn about someone the closer you will feel to that person, right?

How many Curious George's do you have on your team?

Why your organization's intranet should act, feel and function like your Web site

2008-12-12T19:57:00.001-08:00

Quick question: Does your company's intranet act, feel and function like your external Web site?

Unless you work for Best Buy or a handful of other Twin Cities companies, the likely answer is no.

Why?

A litany of excuses exist--lack of resources, lack of commitment, lack of agreement between communications, IT and HR departments. Take your pick. Regardless, not having a progressive, more "social" intranet site is hurting your company--and your employee pride and engagement.

Employees expect company intranets to act, feel and function just like external Web sites. They want to be able to share and rank content. Share photos. And post comments to stories, articles and blog posts. All things they can do on the Web.

And why shouldn't they? Shouldn't your company be communicating with your employees the same way you communicate with your customers? Isn't that just as important, if not more? Don't your employees serve as the front lines to your customers? Aren't they your primary brand champions?

Think about Facebook for a moment. You know a lot about your "friends" on Facebook, right? You know their birthdays, their interests, their hobbies, their kids names--and you're able to view photos of all these folks and communicate with them in real time with a few simple clicks.

Now, think about your organization's intranet--does it function the same way?

You may not have this kind of functionality on your intranet right now--but your employees expect you to. And when you don't, what do they do? They go on Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs and Twitter each night to connect with friends, family and coworkers.

So, what can you do--especially in this resource-constrained economy? Here are a few quick, easy and relatively affordable strategies:

* Give employees the ability to build their own profile--add photos, share interests and hobbies and update contact info. Basic information, but it will empower your employees and allow them to connect in ways you may have never thought of.

* Give employees the ability to rank content. The "folksonomy" approach. Think Amazon. By giving your employees the opportunity to rank articles, stories and videos on your intranet, you'll be able to determine exactly what they're interested in and tailor your approach in the future.

* Give employees the ability to connect with other employees--quickly and efficiently. This might mean providing IM, Yammer or video chat capabilities. The upside of this approach? You'll take the heat off email--and who doesn't want that with many folks receiving upwards of 200 emails a day? And in the process, you'll improve employee productivity.

Implementing some of these basic first steps may not get you all the way to Web 2.0 status, but it will help you engage your internal stakeholders more effectively and connect them in new and different ways.

Why engage in social media?

2008-12-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

Two recent examples of why it pays to engage in social media--even on a personal level:

* My post earlier this week, "Are you really engaging your fan base?" drew an email from my friend, Tom Snee, who works for the University of Iowa. We had some good banter about the issues facing academic institutions when it comes to engaging their alumni. However, in one of his emails, he mentinoed he went to school with Vince Flynn, the Minnesota-based author, and passed along some interesting nuggets about his experience with Vince. Why is this relevant? Because I'm a huge Vince Flynn fan. How did he know that? He obviously took a few minutes to look over my Facebook profile and check out my interests. Kudos, Tom.

Media relations pros could learn a thing or two from Tom's approach when approaching non-traditional media outlets. Starting a blogger outreach campaign? Start by researching the blogger, finding out what interests him/her and reading his/her blog (you can frequently find most of this information right on their blog). You'd be surprised how much a little extra time and work can pay off.

* Earlier this week I sent an email to the marketing director at BlendTec in Utah--the makers of the wildly popular Will it Blend? series. My four-year-old son and I watch the videos virtually every night--it's become somewhat of a bedtime ritual for us. My son's a huge fan--to the point that he knows many of the videos by name and has actually become a Weezer fan as a result (those WIB fans out there know what I'm talking about). Anyway, I wrote this gentleman an email telling him we enjoyed the videos, to keep up the good work and to let me know if he'd ever be interested in featuring their youngest fan in a future video. Hey, it never hurts to ask, right? He responded the next day with a well-crafted email saying he appreciated the note and that he would find some WIB swag and personalize it for my son. Wow--a simple gesture that will surely pay off. OK, so my son may not run out and buy a BlendTec blender tomorrow, but I do tell anyone who will listen about BlendTec and its YouTube videos because of my experience with the company.

This example demonstrates the larger point of listening to your customers and taking even the smallest actions to make them happy. This gentleman could have easily ignored my email, but he knew from the content of my message that I was clearly an engaged WIB "fan" and that a little would go a long ways with me and my son. He was right. Can't wait to see what he sends.

Random stories, I know. But they prove the larger point that social media can pay off--sometimes in unintended ways. And it can work for your company, too. But you have to engage in the tools and you have to be a savvy player.

Are you really engaging your "fan base"?

2008-12-06T18:37:00.000-08:00

I graduated from Winona State University in 1996. It's not a big school, but I really enjoyed my time there. I played golf for a few years, graduated with a BA in mass communications and was involved with the student newspaper, AdFed and a handful of other student-led organizations. Point is, I was an engaged student.

Twelve years later, I'm still an engaged WSU fan. I follow the news and recent happenings from the University. I follow the football, basketball and golf teams. And every once in a while I even get the chance to head down for a game.

But, WSU is still missing a huge opportunity with me.

Aren't I already an invested fan, you ask? Well, yes and no.

As an alumnus, the University depends on people like me for two things: money and referrals/word of mouth.

And quite honestly, despite my commitment to the school, they're failing on both counts.

I don't give back to the University. Not because I don't support it or care. I just haven't been approached in the right way. Every year, some anonymous student calls me from WSU asking for money. A cold call, in effect. It's a blanket ask for money. Little context. And no relevancy. Why not customize the "ask" a little more--have someone from the mass comm dept reach out to me and encourage me to give $100 so they can purchase 25 new MacBooks next year. Or, someone from the golf team could call me and ask for $250 to buy new bags for the team in '09. I can guarantee you right now if either of those calls is made, I'm plunking down the money. Now, you might say, maybe they are planning to use the money for those things? Well, yes, but it's all about relevancy and catering your approach to your "customer"--in this case, alumni like me. Show me you care about me and what's important to me and I'll return the favor.

On the word of mouth side, I also have reservations. I would refer folks to Winona, but I just feel like I don't "know" the school anymore. I don't have the time to keep up with what's going on with the mass comm program. What new facilities they've built. Or, what innovative technologies they've helped develop. What about a once a month email from the alumni office highlighting the most recent achievements of the school, new professors and results from the teams I follow (basketball, football and golf, in my case). Why not offer up more frequent information to those alumni who've signed up the WSU fan Facebook group, including photos from recent alumni events? Why not encourage current students to reach out to former students to ask them to speak at upcoming lectures or classes about how they've put the skills and knowledge they gained at WSU to good use in the workplace? Simple actions that would result in a big payoff--me referring family, friends and colleagues to my alma mater.

With a little extra effort, and a few additional resources, WSU (and other schools its size) could really make huge inroads with their alumni.

What about you? Do you feel engaged by your alumni organization? Why or why not? What could they do differently to draw you in?

Five ways to start fixing the health care industry

2008-12-05T19:02:00.000-08:00

I must start this post by telling you I am a Fairview employee and these remarks and comments in no way reflect the thoughts, opinions and policies of Fairview Health Systems, Inc. I should also tell you that my doc is part of the Allina Health System.

I think the health care system is broken. There, I said it. Obviously, I'm not alone. I say this because I had a health care "experience" earlier this week (physical). For the most part it went OK. I like my doc--he's thoughtful, professional and takes extra time to make sure I understand the advice he's giving. But, around that visit, were problems. Lack of organization. And poor customer service.

I'm not one to complain and not offer solutions, so here goes. Five ways we can start to fix the health care system:

1--Get rid of the gowns. Please. How can I feel comfortable in my clinic or hospital when my backside is hanging out of a gown? I know they give you robes in the hospital, but we just need to get rid of the gowns altogether. It carries a negative stigma and would be an easy fix. Why not give out nicer, warmer robes? Make it an advantage and an extra comfort instead of a negative takeaway for patients.

2--Make it easier to navigate hospitals and clinics. It's getting borderline ridiculous with all the additions clinics and hospitals are making these days. Like navigating a maze. Over at United, I need a tour guide to get around the place. Admittedly, I am a little directionally challenged, but it shouldn't be this hard. Why can't each hospital have a customer service counter the minute you enter--from any entrance. Most hospitals have some form of this (Fairview and United do, but not from every entrance), but others do not. I shouldn't have to spend 20 minutes searching for my clinic or provider.

3--Improve customer service. The health care industry could learn a thing or two from restaurants and retailers. Just simple customer service lessons, for example. Why not give patients pagers while they wait so they can walk around the clinic/hospital instead of being stuck in the waiting room (again, Abbott does do this in their cardiology department--great idea)? Why not incorporate customer service training into medical and nursing programs? After all, isn't half the experience the degree to which you relate to the physician or nurse you're dealing with? My wife and I have had numerous negative experiences with health care professionals--and it wasn't because they didn't know their health care xs and os. It was because of poor customer service and poor communication.

4--Make the insurance/cost side less complicated and more transparent. We're getting there--just not fast enough. With HSAs becoming more popular every day, consumers need this information to make informed decisions. Now. As consumers, we don't care how it happens, we just need it to happen. Why can't providers and insurance companies get together and figure this out ? For example, I go in to see my doc for a chest pain issue. She recommends I head down to the cardio department to get a stress test. OK, how much does that cost? I have an HSA--this is coming out of my pocket. Are their other alternatives? How much do they cost? Do I really need to take this test? This is the kind of scenario that's playing out across America. I know the information's out there--it's just hard to find. We need to make it easier for the consumer.

5--Make provider information more accessible. I'm not talking about their specialties or where they went to school, although that it helpful. I'm talking about how Joe in Minneapolis rated Dr. Matthew during his last visit. I'm talking about how many colon surgeries Dr. Hanson does in a given year and out of those, how many involve adverse health events? This is the information consumers want and expect in today's world. More so than almost any other industry, health care operates on word of mouth. So, we know this information is out there--it just needs to be easier to get to. Some organizations are already heading down this road--healthcarescoop.com and carol.com. Again, we need to get their faster.

This is just a start. What are your thoughts and ideas?