Inside PR: 2.97: Jazzing it up NOLA style with Counselors Academy

This post was originally published on Inside PR 2.97.

Live from New Orleans… well live to tape – Gini, Joe and I are together at PRSA Counselors Academy’s annual conference for agency owners/leaders (and we all had our parts to play…). The theme is ‘Jazz Up Your Agency: Stylings from the Best in the Biz’ and we thought we’d recap our first day and a half. 

(more…)

Are we in an era of PR crises?

Social media amplifies, the good, the bad and the PR crisis. It seems that every week some sort of issue percolates to the surface and catches our attention because of the combination of social media and an organization's failure to communicate.

I attended a Council of PR Firms panel on this subject at SXSW with industry leaders Gary Stockman, CEO, Porter Novelli, Bob Pearson, president, W20 Group, Melissa Waggener Zorkin, CEO, president, and founder, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide and Mark Stouse, VP and global communications leader, Honeywell Aerospace.  The group felt the last part of 2011 and early 2012 had more than its share of PR crises and looked at five high profile cases and whether or not the organizations involved used communications effectively to help resolve them.

(more…)

If the media model is broken, is PR far behind?

We all know MSM is in trouble and has been for some time. And because of that, many outlets are experimenting with innovative ways to reinvent themselves. This isn’t new. But it was reinforced recently at MESH11.

Emily Bell, formerly of the Guardian and now director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, says media has been shaken, turned and dropped from 30,000 feet and the new media landscape will comprise low revenue streams, low profitability and smaller organizations.  Huffington Post’s social media manager, Rob Fishman, claims that because information is no longer scarce, content becomes more about value than cost.

We accept that media is changing (has changed) irrevocably and the pay wall is not a fortress they can hide behind.

Which got me thinking: what does that mean for PR? (more…)

Inside PR 2.54: When the PR hits the fan

For the second time, Gini, Joe and I are in the same room for as we record Inside PR 2.54 – live before a studio audience… OK, we’re at Counselors Academy’s annual conference for PR agency leaders.

The following post originally appeared on the Inside PR blog.  Disclosure: I’m the conference co-chair for 2011 and chair for 2012.

Joe leads off this week’s discussion with: the Burson-Marsteller / Facebook imbroglio. (more…)

You’re killing me with your tone

When I started out as a comedy MC, I used to think killer material was all that mattered. If you had the best jokes, sharpest lines and coolest concepts (and I don’t mean props), you’d win over the crowd every time.

It didn’t take me long to realize how wrong that was.  As much as I hated to admit it, I soon learned that delivery is just as – or in some cases more – important than the writing.   (more…)