A question for you: Have you sent your customers a letter explaining what measures you are taking to support them during this coronavirus crisis? Good. Was the information useful? Even better. Have you emailed them more than once? Stop. Unless you have genuinely important information – to them, not to you – sending repeated emails …
Category: Uncategorized
Apr 24
Return’d So Soon! And Other Sunday Coffee Contemplations
So I’m back. It’s been a while – well over a year – since a new post appeared on this blog. Hell, it’s been almost a year since this blog was even visible. Life – and hackers – happened, and since I’m totally reliant on my husband’s good graces and computer abilities and persistence to …
Jul 02
Just a Public Relations Move
It happened today. Someone I have known closely over 20 years, and who is VERY familiar with what I do for a living and what public relations is, actually said the evil words: “They just did it as a PR move,” when referring to a cosmetic action made by his employer to avoid making a …
Jun 22
Putting a Foundation Under a Writing Dream
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden Anyone who knows me has heard me vent about the quality of writing in many of the public relations students I teach, and the issues I …
May 26
Don’t Talk Yourself Out of a PR Career
I recently read a blog post from someone I know who’s hunting for a job. It was posted on Facebook and, I’m assuming, other social media sites as well, which is bad, because in it he makes a strong case against ever being hired in the PR profession. I’ve observed this person, and even made …
Dec 12
Apologies and Leaders: It’s Simple, Really
Does saying “I’m sorry” help? As with most things in life, the answer is: it depends. For an apology to work, it needs to be real. It needs to be unequivocal and sincere. You can’t tap dance around the issue with phrases so beloved of corporate offenders such as, “I’m sorry if anyone was offended …
Jun 22
PR has a PR Problem…and it’s Journalists, Pt. I
Late last night, as I sat grading final projects from my PR writing students, I had one of the all-news TV stations droning on in the background for the noise to keep me going, I heard it. The “P” word. Actually, he said the “P words – plural. PR Problem. As in, “that company has …
Dec 25
Six PR Skills in Short Supply – Sunday Christmas Coffee Contemplations
The end of the year is customarily a time for reflection on the past and prognostications for the future. This past week, PR maven (such an inadequate and overused word for someone who’s so much more) Gini Dietrich posted a list of six skills that every PR pro needs in this digital world on her …
May 15
Conversations Are a Lost Art – Sunday Coffee Contemplations
Sitting in a session led by Sharon Saylor, author of “What Your Body Says {and how to master the message]” , and she has set me thinking. As we move more and more to an online social world, where everyone knows all and tells all online, are we losing our ability to know when to …
Apr 27
PR People are Unethical, Manipulative Liars
PR people are unethical, manipulative liars – or so a couple of LinkedIn discussion threads I’ve been following the past few weeks would have you believe. The first thread, in the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA National) group, featured a professor who was asked by a student “Do you think PR people are ‘supposed’ …
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