PRSA-Idaho’s new focus for 2009

Kudos to the Idaho chapter of Public Relations Society of America [PRSA] on the direction of their programming for 2009 – focused on collaboration and information sharing.

As President Joanne Taylor noted in an email to PRSA membership, “While hearing from public relations professionals and social media strategists outside our market is important, several PRSA Idaho members have expressed an interest in creating more dialogue among its members, and tapping into local resources. We have developed our first two program topics with this spirit in mind, and lowered the price to attend. In addition to these programs, we will continue to host teleseminars and web conferences that further our knowledge and understanding of public relations and social media practices.”

Here is what is on tap for February and April…
_____________________

Effective Pitching Practices
Bring your sense of humor and war stories to this meeting where we’ll share pitching methods and techniques, successes and failures. During this session we will:
-Learn how to develop finesse in:
Phone pitching
Email pitching
Micro/speed pitching
Approach (by target)
-Practice live pitching
-Share our lists of top 5 things to avoid when pitching
-Bring examples of effective pitches and pitch results
When:  Wednesday, February 11, 11:45-1:00
Where: Drake Cooper, 416 So. 8th St.
Cost:   $8 members, $10 non-members (includes lunch)
RSVP:  Robbie Johnson, Rjohnson@achd.ada.id.us, 208.387.6228
Please RSVP by February 9
________________

PR/COMM Experience and Education—How to lead in a PR, PIO or communications role without them
Several PR practitioners, communicators and PIOs have landed in their jobs without previous public relations experience or formal training. If you are one of them and would like to get tips on how to become more confident and effective as a PR practitioner or PIO, this will prove to be a valuable meeting for you. During this session, we will hear from a number of communications professionals who can address this topic. Then, we’ll open it up for discussion.
Beth Toal, Public Relations Manager, St. Luke’s Health Care System
John Foster, Senior Advisor and Director of Communications for Congressman Walt Minnick
Chris Smith, Internal Communications and Corporate Affairs, Micron
Mary Frances Casper, Professor of Public Relations, BSU

When:  Wednesday, April 22, 11:45-1:00
Where: Regence, 1211 W. Myrtle
Cost:   $8 members, $10 non-members (includes lunch)
RSVP:  Robbie Johnson, Rjohnson@achd.ada.id.us, 208.387.6228
Please RSVP by April 20

Congrats to the PRSA-Idaho Board of Directors for 2009

• Joanne Taylor, President
• Sydney Sallabanks. President-elect
• Georganne Benjamin , Past President
• Rick Phillips, APR, Treasurer
• Robbie Johnson, Secretary
• Beth Toal , Member-at-Large
• David N. Compton , APR – Member -at-Large (Accreditation)
• Christine Lynch, Member-at-Large

So what other topics should PRSA-Idaho be focusing on, discussing, mulling over? Comment away with your great ideas!

-Jess

The game has changed

This post has been brewing for quite some time, and an ad this past weekend in our local daily, the Idaho Statesman, set it off.

Forget the Year of the Ox, this is shaping up to be the Year of the Snark (ode to Lewis Carroll) – or more appropriately, snarky (as in – sarcastic, usually out of irritation.) That’s the word that comes to mind when I read the various industry blogs in our community and see the resulting comments. Snarky anonymous comments aimed only at cutting people down, attacking the professionals in our industry and their creative output. It’s about pointing out the failings of others instead of how it could be done better.  That’s now spread out of the the social media realm into the pages of the ‘core’ media. Which is what I will now call the so-called ‘traditional’ media (thanks Brian Harrison!)

After talking to fellow creative professionals in our market, I fear this type of reaction and dialogue will only increase as we move through a very tough year. Jockeying for positions while stepping on heads. Competition is good… but only if you remember to have a soul whether you win or lose. And… if you keep in mind what the bigger, broader world actually cares about.

When I first returned to Boise to work in the media, I was pleasantly surprised at the friendly comraderie and competition. The same people we socialized with and debated with we fought hard to beat on stories every night. When I transitioned into the field of public relations, the feeling continued as I collaborated with so-called competitors on projects and talked about strategies and the future of our profession with those I would go up against for work.

But the game has changed. Tough economic times, a more crowded professional services industry, a significant increase in the communication channels available. No matter what the reason – the landscape is different now.

Case in point – the ad in the Idaho Statesman this weekend.

If you missed it, the paper dedicated a full page to a transcript from a local TV station’s 10pm news (pretty sure it was KTVB) and wrote, “Ever feel like you don’t get the whole story? Consider this – the average 10 pm newscast doesn’t even fill one page of this newspaper.” The headline was followed by “During the average week, we give you more than 350 pages of news and information to save you time and money and make you smarter.”

It grabbed my attention for a few reasons

• Surprised the paper would take a full page for an ad for themselves in the Saturday Sunday issue. If I’m reading the paper on this low high readership day I’m already one of the few who still subscribe, right?
• Bit surprised by the desperation of the ad – and its snarky tone (had to throw that in there). I am used to television stations battling it out against each other for ratings. But to see what was once considered the statewide paper and communication leader needing to tout its newsworthiness and importance was a bit odd. In my eyes, it brought the paper  down to a level of slugging it out in the mud for readership.
• And finally, when I saw the angry response from friends at the TV station which had its transcript printed, I thought

THEY DON’T GET IT

It is not about the amount of news and information and how much space or time it takes up.

It is not about whether print or broadcast is the medium of choice.

It is about the content – how relevant it is to my life and if it is available or delivered to me in the manner I prefer.

I am still a daily newspaper reader. It is part of my routine and I would feel lost without it. However, I gather information from Twitter, online news sources, RSS feeds, video channels and blogs throughout the day. For local television news, I go to websites and download the videos I want to watch. My media gathering is catered to me, my needs, my desire for content, and how it fits into my day – not vice versa.

On the flip side – for every social media evangelist who waves a banner calling for the death of ‘core’ media – go find out how much of the content on blogs and microblogs stem from the ‘core’ before you try to kill it off. The majority of the links I follow and websites I visit to get my fix of daily news are based on the content that core journalists provide.

Rather than choosing one or the other, killing one off to raise one up, I prefer to see our communication landscape in terms of evolution. Evolving  our way of consuming and sharing information, of developing meaningful content, of communicating one on one and one to many with a relevant voice.

As each of our every moves comes increasingly under the microscope of this ever-increasingly social and connected world – I encourage you to keep the dialogue on a higher level. Challenge each other to be better for the benefit of our professional services industry, media professionals at a crossroads, and ultimately those people we are trying to reach with our words, images, thoughts and opinions.

- Jess

(mind you – I’m a purist with blogs. If you want to leave a comment, you must identify yourself

Make the Leap: Media Rooms, Twitter Metrics, Power of One

It’s been a month filled with massive proposals, social media overload and new staff at our agency (Growth is good – and hopefully, contagious!) But this will be the week the blog becomes robust again.  To start the week, some links of note:

Media Rooms / Press Sites / Newsrooms

No matter what you call them, your company better have one and it better be relevant to ensure your story is told and told well. It is a statement of the obvious to say that journalists find their information online. Oftentimes, as I’ve experienced with several clients, stories are written and published purely off what they find online. This post on Press Area Usability is a good one with some scientific data on what journalists look for – and great points on what you need to include. All summarized with ‘Why spend a fortune on outbound PR (trying to pitch journalists) when you neglect simple steps to increase the effectiveness of inbound PR (satisfying journalists who visit your website)?’ As one journalist succinctly stated “It behooves the company to make their website easier to use. You immediately begin to hate the company when it’s not.”

One isn’t the loneliest number

If microblogging has brought us anything, it has helped many a communicator return to their concise roots. It makes me miss the days of :15 second broadcast stories and :5 second teases. Here’s a great list from Dan Santow of phrases that can be replaced with one word.

Twitter Metrics

Speaking of the microblogging platform at everyone’s fingertips these days – once people embrace it they often wonder, what about the metrics? (congrats btw to our client Tucanos Brazilian Grill, which is embracing Twitter to communicate with Boise as they prepare to open their new restaurant. Check out the team @SLOldham, @Mr_Tucanos, @HeathShepard). David Smith’s post on Online Metrics Insider is worth checking out – “There are two major things that you can do right now via Twitter from a metrics standpoint. The first is, measure what is happening with your tweets. The second is, what is the noise about your clients?“

Tweets are Public!

If you haven’t learned already that social media is just that – social! (and usually very public) take a lesson from this Ketchum PR VP – oops! This isn’t just something that happened to an anonymous national PR pro, but locally – some communicators are forgetting that the lines between public and private commentary are blurred and/or completely gone. Hmmmmm… that sounds like a blog post waiting to happen!

Emphasize possiblities, not limitations

Inspiring words and guidance from the agency minds nationwide on ‘Surviving 2009: 7 Management Lessons for Agencies from Past Recessions’

Here’s to a challenging, yet rewarding, 2009 for everyone

- Jess