Where Do You Stand?

The day after Labor Day – in my book, that should be the beginning of the school year. But at Standing Partnership, we encourage and support a learning environment all year round, both for our employees and the many audiences that have invited us to the front of their classrooms.

I recently stepped out of my “Summer Friday mode” into my “wow, I am a professional and someone cares about what I have to say mode” to discuss effective business writing with the students in Saint Louis University’s John Cook School of Business one-year MBA program.

While writing effectively seems like it should be second nature to MBA students, corporate executives and even communications professionals, we all could use the occasional brush-up regarding the importance of critical thinking as it relates to business writing, how to organize information and how to use that information to write concisely.

Two of the most common mistakes we all make when diving into a writing assignment are forgetting the purpose of our writing and forgetting the needs of our audience. What is our writing supposed to get the audience to do? What does the audience need to understand to take the desired action?

As we lift our pens (or tap our keyboards) to tackle “this semester’s writing assignments,” let’s not forget that regardless of our academic backgrounds or occupations, standards and consistency are critical to writing effectively.

Just one part of what’s special about our team at Standing Partnership is every person’s excitement about giving back to our communities. The commitment began with the firm’s founding in 1991, but I admit I was blown away recently when a team member pointed out that we have helped nearly 50 civic and charitable organizations as community partners to date.

Just before our company’s 10th birthday, we formalized the partnership selection process. Now, we select several nonprofit organizations annually and commit to share our time, dollars and expertise. We value these community partners and treat them as if they were full-paying clients.

This year’s St. Louis partners are:

• Center for Character & Citizenship (UMSL)
• Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition
• KidSmart Push for Pencils
• Old Newsboys Day
• Our Little Haven
• Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis
• Siteman Cancer Center
• Social Venture Partners
• Stray Rescue of St. Louis
• United Way of Greater St. Louis

Virginia office partners are:

• PACEM (People and Congregations Involved in Ministry)
• Virginia High School League

Our partnerships vary:

• Some of our projects are “done in a day” … such as the Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition’s fundraising kickball tournament. The Standing team won two games and raised money for a great cause!
• Other projects bring together a full Standing “client” team to handle a short-term consulting assignment, manage a branding effort, develop a social media strategy, or oversee a longer-term media relations training and outreach program.
• Some support takes the form of direct financial contributions or sponsorships of partner events.
• Some long-term nonprofit Standing clients have also been our community partners … when we have believed in their mission and decided to provide additional services to help accomplish important goals. Sometimes there just aren’t the resources to do everything.

Anyone who doesn’t believe one person – or a small company – can make a big difference, you may be surprised how wrong that idea is.

We highlight our community partnerships on our Web site, and I encourage you to nominate your favorite charity this November when we will vote as a group on our partners for next year!

One of the newest trends currently emerging in the traditional publishing world is the cross-niche, global magazine. Apparently, reading up on culture, society, international affairs and everything in between in one compact publication is where readership is going – or, at least where publishing houses want us to be. Illustrating this point is the lot of new publications that are seamlessly merging a wide variety of topics into one package. Take for example, a personal new favorite of mine, Monocle magazine, from the publisher of the widely successful Wallpaper magazine.  

Monocle, as described on its Web site, “is a global briefing covering international affairs, business, culture and design and is developed for an international audience hungry for information across a variety of sectors.”  Further blurring the lines, its publishers call it “more of a book than a magazine.”  Monocle maintains a high level of quality content through its extensive network of bureaus all managed from central command in London and is presented in a simple design chock-full of interesting photography.

In our increasingly interconnected, global world, these new media outlets are tapping into a new truism – connecting to the global community is accessible, important and relevant. What happens in Mumbai may not affect your daily life, if you are in say, Minneapolis; but what Monocle does well is its ability to open your viewpoint to new ideas and trends that can easily be translated to your work or personal life. 

A rather benign conversation last week with a friend in
Argentina quickly turned into a heated discussion when she began explaining her newly chosen profession as a “BlueCaster.” Not familiar? Don’t feel bad, neither was I.

She explained BlueCasting as a proximity marketing technology that uses WiFi signals and Bluetooth enabled devices to transmit advertising messages. In a real-life setting this translates to billboards and adverts beaming messages to passing Bluetooth devices such as your mobile phone. This all means that advertising is about to get much harder to ignore. But that may not be a bad thing, in fact, it just may be what consumers want – the ability to accept advertising that is relevant to them on their terms.

My first reaction to learning about this technology was how intrusive BlueCasting sounds and it is, but my friend quickly calmed those fears by explaining the simple solution – just turn off your Bluetooth.

Time will tell if BlueCasting is relevant to consumers. If marketers can deliver exclusive or valuable content, I believe it will work. If not, it may become another annoyance in our hyper-connected lives. In the meantime, I fully intend to support my friend, albeit cautiously, in her new endeavor as a “BlueCaster.” However, this all may change on my next trip to visit her should my mobile be inundated with her handiwork.

Despite all the conveniences afforded by modern technology, it’s hard to work and communicate with co-workers and clients when you cannot use a telephone. I’ve found this out on numerous occasions when I’ve decided to work from home. That’s because I live in St. Charles County and must abide by an antiquated toll-call rule.

If I use my phone (636 area code) to call the office (314 area code), I must pay a long-distance charge. If I call a client, that’s another charge. If I check my voice mail, another one. But that’s just the simple version of what’s going on. It gets more complicated.

To understand just how absurd and confusing the 636 and 314 area code situation is for my home phone, think about this:

• I can use my home phone to call my mother-in-law, whose house is 45 minutes away in Eureka.
• I cannot, however, call my best friend, who lives 12 minutes away in Maryland Heights.
• I can call our dog’s groomer across the Missouri River in Chesterfield using my home phone.
• But I cannot call the office, which is just one ZIP code away from Chesterfield.

So I can call 636 numbers, but I cannot call 314 numbers. OK. I get that. But how come I can use a 314 number and call some 636 numbers? For example, I can use my work phone to call my house. And I can use my work phone to call Chesterfield numbers. I cannot, however, use my work phone to call the 636 number of my colleague Christi, who lives out in wine country. How absurd is that?

Further complicating matters, my cell phone is equipped with just 150 peak minutes - the plan is cheap, what can I say - so that’s not an option other than for calls under 2-3 minutes. (And friends and family, that’s why I often call you at 8:01 p.m. - I’m waiting for the free minutes to kick in.)

It’s easy to understand why there’s such a divide between St. Louis and St. Charles counties. The area codes act as a steel-built wall, keeping communication from flowing freely in between these two neighboring areas. How can a company expect to provide great client service to clients when you can’t even call them? St. Louis, St. Louis County and St. Charles County are considered part of the same region, so why not open up the telephone lines?

The absurdity of this area code situation is just too much for me. So the other day, when I was thinking about working from home but realized I had several calls to make, I just drove in and worked at the office. Why complicate matters that are already too complicated to understand.

A year ago, one of our clients, The Doe Run Company, asked our opinion about an opportunity they received to invite employees to participate in keeping a day journal for consideration of an upcoming book. We advised them to participate with authors Joni B. Cole and B.K. Rakhra, who together had authored two earlier books chronicling the many different roles and careers of women across America. For their third book, “Water Cooler Diaries,” Cole and Rakhra solicited day-journals from more than 500 women who each chronicled their day on March 27, 2007. The result is 35 full-day diary entries and dozens more diary excerpts from women 23 – 64 in careers that span the spectrum from rancher to actor.

Our team was thrilled that three Doe Run employees took the challenge: a mine geologist, a metallurgical engineer and a technical service engineer. From their entries the authors selected one full day diary entry and one excerpt for inclusion in the book.

Our client could have simply said thank you to the three employees, purchased a book and moved on. Instead, our client contacts asked, “what can we do to fully celebrate the participation of these three women?” In short order the pr team (our client and our firm) prepared a full strategic communications plan that supports the client’s position as a leader in the industry. The Result: Joni Cole and our client were featured on TV, radio and print; invited to speak before 300 business leaders for the Winning Women organization; participated in a company event celebrating the efforts of all three Doe Run employee diarists; and hosted local Girl Scout troops to a special event at the Missouri Mines Historic Site at which the author and the three Doe Run employees educated young women about diverse careers.

A year ago, when the opportunity first presented itself, our client could have seen it as too much work and too slim a chance to receive any value for the effort involved. Instead they took the time to look for the opportunity behind the assignment and found a bigger picture that’s worth framing.

Steve Cody, aka Rep Man has a post on the PRSA blog, ComPRehension about “Walking the Walk.” In it, Cody encourages PR firms to blog, as a way of gaining the experience of strategies they may be recommending to clients.

“Blogging is so much more than just an important tool in the overall public relations counselor’s arsenal. Rather, it represents that rare opportunity in which we can not only provide counsel, but ‘live the experience’ as well,” he says.

I felt a bit dismayed as I read his post. While I agree with what Cody says, it’s unfathomable to me that there are firms out there who still have not experienced social media as a service to their clients. PRSA seems to have a gentle stance on social media; they’re encouraging knowledge but not saying what we know to be true. If you’re a professional communicator, get social media experience — not now, yesterday. It is, in my opinion, PR malpractice to not be intimately familiar with the most widespread, accessible and popular communication tools of the last twenty years.

In fact, I think firms who are not embracing social media and who claim to be “more traditional” PR firms might as well say, “We don’t e-mail information. We fax it.”

I realize this is a pretty strong statement, but if you’re a PR professional worth your salt (or salary) you owe it to your clients and your firm to get smart about today’s and tomorrow’s communications tools. Blogging is just one slice of the pie. Your clients’ communities are using Twitter, Facebook and instant messaging to communicate. The media is using these tools as well, in fact, pitching via Twitter is fast becoming a perfectly acceptable and by some, welcomed method as it limits the pitch to 140 characters.

It’s time to take stock. If you’re thinking of hiring a PR firm, find out about their social media experience. Ask to see the firm’s social media resume. What are they doing for themselves in the online space? Do the members of the firm blog professionally and/or personally? Are they capable and practiced at monitoring the online conversation about their clients? Find out what online tools they would explore using to support your company’s objectives.

Terrible media pitches make me laugh, often by their mere stupidity (for examples, see here and here). But when a painfully obvious PR stunt somehow garners international attention, something just isn’t right.

Take the headline-grabbing story about Josephs and Marys being offered a free hotel room on Christmas. The news release is posted on the British hotel chain’s Web site. It’s pretty darn flowery cheesy. I’m sure somebody with extremely religious fortitude might even find it offensive. Here’s a sampling (though I have to admit I cleaned up some of the egregious errors because they made me cringe):

The “gift” of a free night’s stay is to make up for the hotel industry not having any rooms left on Christmas Eve over 2,000 years ago when the original “Mary and Joseph” had to settle for the night in a stable.

Today’s Mary and Joseph will stay in a spacious Travelodge family room, which can also cater for a baby and a manger. A free car parking space will be provided for the donkey, and there are plenty of £29 rooms available for the Shepherds and Wise Men to book. The couple can stay anytime from Christmas Eve to the Twelfth Night.

It’s mid-December, so news outlets are feasting on soft news like this right now. But this is pretty far out there. Nevertheless, the story is making the rounds on all of the major news Web sites. CNN ran a story about it on Saturday, even infusing the story with PR lingo (“Josephs and Marys in search of a room at the inn this Christmas are being made an offer they can’t refuse”). Believe it or not, the story is considered photo-worthy “breaking news” in Trinidad and Tobago.

It’s a clever idea, I guess, but the PR smell is hard to ignore. What do you think of the story? Have you run across any others that scream “PR stunt?”

Jamie Riley, letters editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was kind enough to lend me her ear today to discuss the inner workings of the Post-Dispatch’s Editorial Department. The Standing team learned some time ago about an incoming editorial page editor, but thanks to Jamie, we now know a bit more. For those of you doing business in St. Louis, these are folks you’ll want to know.

- Christine Bertelson has officially transitioned to features. We wish her the best of luck.

- Jamie is covering letters exclusively. (FYI, letters to the editor are now in real time; respond quickly and concisely.)

-Eric Mink remains the Commentary Editor; he’s the recipient of all op-eds and position pieces.

-Kevin Horrigan was recently promoted to Deputy Editorial Page Editor. Congrats!

-Gilbert Bailon is serving as the new Editorial Page editor. He joined the paper from Dallas. Jamie mentioned that he’s eager to learn more about St. Louis.

There’s also the opportunity to engage with Jamie online. Thanks again, Jamie!

In this season of Thanksgiving, as we all gather together to give thanks for our many blessings, may I suggest that the professions of public relations and journalism put aside the most ridiculous, time-wasting fight since the Anna Nicole Smith baby-daddy smackdown and just (gasp - dare I say it?!) work together?

If you’re unaware, here’s the basic conflict in a nutshell:

• Apparently, PR people so annoy journalists with our asinine press releases, worthless emails and phone calls, and basic lack of understanding of their profession and their publications/outlets, that they would like to see the PR industry as a whole go the way of the woolly mammoth.
• Conversely, journalists drive PR people to drink with their arrogance, unwavering determination to incorrectly report even the most basic facts about a company and/or story, and complete unwillingness to acknowledge and/or correct said mistakes, despite a PR pro’s best efforts to provide said journalists with the correct information.

Lately, this conflict has gotten increasingly ugly, between Wired’s editor-in-chief Chris Anderson publicly banning 300 PR pros from emailing him and Online Media Daily’s George Simpson saying that journalists think the PR industry, and I quote, “as a rule does not attract the best and the brightest, but rather the cutest and fastest-talking.” 

Rather than continuing down this path and taking Mr. Simpson’s bait, I will refrain from denigrating the profession of journalism and those who choose it for their career path. Here’s what I will say: are there some pathetically bad PR people out there who’ve completely earned the nickname “flack”? Yep. Likewise, are there some pathetically bad journalists out there who should make other competent journalists want to break their fingers and lock them in a closet? Oh, yeah.

Get my point? Last time I checked, people, we live in a democracy and run a capitalistic economy - therefore, let capitalism work. Journalists, if you come across bad PR people, simply refuse to work with them (as Chris Anderson has every right to do, but it would have been much more gracious and classy of him to do it privately). It’s up to you whether you take the time to tell them they suck, and why they suck, but just refuse to work with them. Let the competitive PR marketplace take it from there - and believe me, it will. However, do not write off the entire profession - continue working with the PR pros who do their jobs well (as you apparently do quite a bit, according to this study released by PRSA and cited by Mr. Simpson in his aforementioned article) and everyone’s a winner. 

And PR professionals? When you come across an unethical, ridiculously arrogant, or just plain bad journalist, stop trying to work with them. I know - I can hear you yelling at your computer, “We can’t! We have to get in xxx publication - our clients demand it!” That may have been true even a year ago, but I would argue it’s not so true anymore. There are an amazing array of ways to help your clients talk directly with the communities they want to reach, and traditional media isn’t necessarily the best way to do that anymore. It doesn’t do you or your clients any good to waste time and dollars going after attention from rude, unethical or untalented journalists. Again, let the market do its job and weed out those journalists/publications/outlets that aren’t producing quality work.

Additionally, if you haven’t had a frank discussion with your clients about the smartest ways to reach their audiences, go do that now. And if they still insist on being on the front page of the Wall Street Journal even though it absolutely makes no sense and won’t even really help their business all that much, rethink your relationship with that client.

Likewise, if you have strong contacts with good journalists, or you’d like to develop them, use some common sense. Do your homework, respect their time and deadlines, and give them what they need when they need it to do their jobs.

Thank you to all the journalists out there who are talented, ethical and respectful, as well as all the PR professionals who do their jobs with dignity, integrity and grace every day. Let’s work together, weed out the bad apples, get our jobs done well and get home to count the blessings that really matter.