A recent PBS special on the coming-of-age of Silicon Valley reminded me of the excitement I had dreaming up the seemingly endless uses for my family’s first home computer (a Timex Sinclair 1000, with 1.5k of built-in memory, circa 1982), and the epochal significance of the work everyone in the technology sector is doing today,…
This post is not intended to weigh in on either side of the gun control debate. Rather, it is to call out the inexplicable approach the NRA has taken since the school shootings in Newton, Connecticut. The organization, which represents 4 million gun owners – surely all of whom are sickened and heartbroken by the…
For the past decade there has been lots of talk about the coming boom in healthcare IT spending, but little to show for it. Now the money is actually starting to flow. As a result, the healthcare industry has developed an insatiable appetite for hard-to-find skilled IT workers. Sunny Singh, CEO of health IT company Edifecs…
Great public relations campaigns create tangible value for businesses that advertising or other marketing strategies often can’t match. That’s because the results are ‘earned’ rather than ‘paid.’ A message about your company that is repeated by a respected writer or analyst has far more value than one you insert into a paid banner ad, and…
It’s the peak of summer in the Pacific Northwest. And that means the mountains here are full of people hiking, backpacking, and climbing. For years, well-equipped outdoors types have carried the “10 essentials,” a list of must-have items coined back in the 1930s by members of the Seattle Mountaineers club. The list includes things such…
As public relations professionals, we are often like surfers – aware that epic waves will occasionally arrive and therefore doing our best to pre-position ourselves (for our clients) to catch and ride them all the way to media coverage glory. It doesn’t always work out that way, even when the approaching wave is a rare…
Most of the PR agency world is divided into business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B). But it would be a mistake to assume that the consumer doesn’t play a central role in a quality B2B public relations program. While my colleagues and I spend most of our time in the B2B sphere, working with businesses that…
Just about everybody would like to see themselves or their business featured on NBC Nightly News, CNN, or the Bloomberg Network. But how do you get the attention of producers looking for new topics? To give your business exposure with millions of TV news viewers, you have to think hard about the needs of the…
As the planet’s most successful retailer, Amazon often is in the news. But recently the company spent several days on the front pages of the Seattle Times, and not always in the most flattering light. Over the course of a four-part series, the paper gave Amazon a mild chiding for issues such as working conditions…
As a Washington D.C. and Seattle public relations and marketing firm, we are on the receiving end of countless inquiries from people who are anxious to find a job.We get it – unemployment is high and lots of people are looking.We are not currently hiring, but we do have some tips to help you get…
The American Telemedicine Association kicked off its Fall Forum here in Anchorage this week. Attendees got a close-up look at the struggles rural Alaskans have endured to obtain basic healthcare services. As a public relations firm that is always after a good story, we can confidently state the Alaskan story has got it all. Ron…
The demise of Google Health is more proof that the health IT hype is no longer en vogue. The hype cycle is ebbing and a tide of real money is starting to wash into the sector. The press is hungry for IT implementation stories (as opposed to ‘idea stories’ about the promises of IT adoption).
