The other day, I received a phone call from the alumni office at my alma mater. I have received phone calls from the alumni office in the past asking me for donations (and have made donations), so I had no qualms about answering the phone and engaging with the associate on the other end. What…
Product announcements are no doubt an exciting time for a company, its stakeholders, partners and PR team. We recently completed a project for Swan Island Networks and its announcement of TIES for Microsoft CityNext – a partnership built to help local and regional governments “tie” together a wide spectrum of existing information, from both public…
Thought leadership has become a big part of organizations’ communications mix, even for companies like our clients who are selling solutions to government agencies and other businesses, especially here in DC. The idea behind thought leadership is to take the focus away from products and direct it towards the underlying issues that our clients’ solutions…
During a recent interview I was asked to identify the top attributes or skills we seek in our future employees. The easy answer is, “it depends.” But one thing is for certain – while basic public relations skills like media relations, writing, pitching and project management are absolute musts, they don’t come close to capturing…
As PR professionals in DC, it’s our job to monitor the federal marketplace for trends that inform our clients’ communications and marketing strategies. One theme we’ve heard a lot about lately is that in this era of flat or declining government budgets, it’s become almost clichĂ© to talk of agencies “doing more with less.” How…
Most PR pros know that reporters get hundreds, maybe thousands of emails a day, many of which are irrelevant newsletters, press releases and pitches that are the product of old or misinformed lists. Unfortunately it gives a lot of good PR pros a bad rap. It also makes it more difficult for your story idea…
He wears leather gloves and constantly smokes cigars. He is cool and calm even when in peril. A master of disguise, this chief tactician relishes the moment when he can say, “I love it when a plan comes together.” Thanks to a recent film adaptation of a popular 1980’s TV show, old and young will…
The news that the U.S. government is giving up control of the Internet – that is, the Department of Commerce announcing it will end its oversight of ICANN, the non-profit that administers Internet domains – brought me back to a time in my public affairs career when I learned first-hand about managing controversies, especially those…
We can only wonder whether a faster release of critical information about the actual path of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight would alter the outcome, such as a rescue of passengers, a discovery of wreckage, or the quick pursuit of leads in a criminal investigation before they dried up. Instead we are witnessing a communications…
If you’ve paid any attention to SEO lately, here are two ideas that you’ve probably picked up on: SEO and PR are converging Good SEO practices are starting to very closely resemble classic PR Gone are the days when technical webmasters were the only ones concerning themselves with SEO. Last year I wrote about how…
