PRSA Rochester Luncheon Slides

Join me and colleagues from my adopted hometown -- Rochester, NY -- on Thursday, January 27, for an abbreviated version of the "Speed of New" discussion as presented at the 2009 and 2010 PRSA International Conferences. Click here to visit the PRSA Rochester home page.

PRSA International Conference Slides

Looking for slides from my presentations at the 2010 PRSA International Conference in Washington, D.C.? Well, you've come to the right place.

Click here to download slides from the "Working at the Speed of New" pre-conference seminar.

Slides from the "Shake & Stir: Blending Social and Traditional" can be downloaded here.

PR News Crisis Management Seminar

If you dialed in for PR News' crisis management Webinar today with John Deveney (Deveney Communications), Glen Nowak (Centers for Disease Control) and me , thanks for participating. My slide deck can be downloaded here.

PRSA "Mash Up" Webinar

Slides from the September 2 PRSA "Mash Up" Webinar hosted by Cathy Dunkin, Tom Hoehn, and me are available for download here. They won't mean much without the commentary, so we hope you join us live!

Syracuse University (Newhouse) Slides

Thanks to the graduate students and faculty from Syracuse University's renowned Newhouse School, with whom I had the pleasure of speaking with last evening. As promised, my presentation content is posted here.

Conquering Your (Boss's) Fear

I had the fortune to be invited to speak at the PRSA Travel & Tourism Conference in Aspen, Colo. last week. What is an eye health PR pro (and former technology PR pro) doing among a gathering of communicators more interested in hospitality than ophthalmology?

Well, it would seem we have quite a bit in common. In my case, and with my co-presenters Tom Hoehn of Kodak and Cathy Dunkin of Standing Partnership, it was about ways to pair social and traditional media for top-notch outcomes.

But what I didn't expect to hear from attendees was their challenges in getting their supervisors, executives, or others pulling higher pay grades to agree to take some calculated risks with regard to PR. Isn't this the industry of Virgin's Richard Branson? Of Southwest's Herb Kelleher? Of "What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas?"

Yup, I was (temporarily) flummoxed. Currently working in a conservative, highly regulated industry, I would have thought that the travel and leisure segment was a veritable playground of PR experimentation.

Now back to working at a more reasonable altitude (Rochester's 505 feet, vs. Aspen's 7,900 feet!), my head is a little less cloudy. So what can PR pros in this industry -- or any industry -- do to push the envelope a bit?

First, assess how far you can reasonably push, and how fast. Then find a way to get a small win within those boundaries, and then roll that into something a bit bigger (rinse and repeat).

Second, look to others who are having success, and showcase their results. It may be a similar group in another geography, or a competitor just down the road. Or it may be an organization in another industry altogether. As much as I like to pioneer new PR techniques, I always remember that many of my cohorts would prefer that someone else blaze the trail, allowing us to follow close behind.

Third, ask what's at the core of your executive's hesitancy. Could it be that he/she was burned before? Perhaps they don't understand the approach or technology? Or maybe they're working with incorrect or incomplete information? Get to the root of the problem before identifying the solution.

I'd be interested to hear others' experiences and tips as well. Leave a comment here, drop me a note, or help out the travel industry and book a flight to tell me in person!

PRSA Travel & Tourism Conference

The slides from "PR Mashup: Blending New Media with Old" can be downloaded as a PDF by clicking here.

PR News: Vendor Procurement Musings

The Blackberry buzzed the other day, and I found a message from PR News asking to chat about vendor sourcing and relationships. A few of my thoughts made it into this story (although I'm not sure how Gartner got in there... maybe I had a relapse to my tech days).

One point of clarification... as a former agency new biz director myself, I'm a crusader against RFPs when they're not formed and managed intelligently by the client. I can share the war stories -- as many of you can -- about bungled RFPs, cattle calls, winning the business only to find there's no real budget available, etc. But that's a topic for another post!

Where have you been?

Anywhere but on this blog, quite frankly! It's been a whirlwind spring, with the pot only further stirred with the announcement of a new chairman and a new CEO at Bausch + Lomb (which has kept me busy with professional pursuits).

As of next week, though, I can claim to have visited Palm Springs for the 2010 PRSA Western District Conference. It's a quick trip -- an afternoon in B+L's Surgical headquarters in Orange County, a morning in the desert speaking with colleagues, and then back home.

For those visiting the blog to pick up my slides after the conference, you can download the PDF from here.

Demystifying that New Employee Communications Tool

As a seasoned practitioner, you're probably hearing the "I'm-trying-to-kill-this-but-playing-along-for-now" questions from your colleagues who are a bit wary of that slick new item in your proverbial employee communications toolbox.

"Won't this increase our liability? What about discoverability?" come the rapid-fire inquisition from the caffeinated folks in legal.

"How do we know that people will use this appropriately? Can we control what they say or don't say?" come the queries from the compliance team.

"Do we really want to give disgruntled employees a forum like this? Won't they be able to get to everyone in the company?" inquire the human resources professionals.

"How can we make sure that people don't use this all day instead of working? Are you sure there's any real business benefit to this?" pass the lips of line managers.

With the advent of internal/employee-focused social media tools, these "new" questions and dozens more like them are being asked every day. But are they really so new?

In short, no.

You may recall that little technology affectionately known as e-mail. I recall first using it in an office setting in 1995, on a fishbowl-looking Mac terminal dedicated to the task behind our agency's reception desk that had an astonishing 28.8 Kbps dial-up capability. Fast-forward 15 years, and e-mail is a part of (if not controlling) our everyday lives. Oh, the dangers...

Or look back to the introduction of instant messaging. My God, you could reach a colleague five desks away and not even need to get up. IM killed the water cooler.

Of course, that World Wide Web thing was just a fad, right? Imagine being able to go anywhere in a virtual universe at the touch of a few keys. It's amazing there's any productivity left in the world.

Don't even get me started on that wonder known as the facsimile machine... I could make that thermal paper zing and sing at the end of a squealing line thousands of miles away in a remote branch office, spewing out anything I could fit onto a scannable sheet.

And of course, the evils of pen, paper and stamp are well known. You mean I could write to anyone about anything, and have it arrive uncensored? You betcha, and with that newfangled photocopier, I could even make copies of letters I received and tack them to the office bulletin boards.

OK, I'll stop before I get to slate tablets and smoke signals. But you get the point. The questions being asked today by your colleagues are -- in many ways -- the same that have been asked for decades as new communications technologies have been introduced. Sure, there are some differences here and there, but the basic principle is the same:

"What I don't understand, I fear. And what I fear, I seek to kill."

So, as you go about launching your internal social media platform, take a few moments -- or more likely a few weeks or months -- to reintroduce your colleagues in legal, HR, compliance and elsewhere to the communications "technologies" they now take for granted. Get to the core of their fears, and help them see social media tools as evolutionary, not revolutionary (yes, my fellow PR pros, tone down the hype already!).

And if that doesn't work? Well, I know where you can get a deal on some slightly used fax machines and reams of thermal paper! Just tell your employees it's "vintage" social networking.