Results tagged “public relations” from PR Needed Here
Every so often the news brings us a complete train wreck, the person who can't help but do everything wrong. Today it's South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who has been discovered having a very public sexual liaison with an Argentinian-woman-not-his-wife. In so doing, he has given us a new euphemism for sexual misconduct: "hiking the Appalachian Trail."Let's count the ways Sanford has screwed up: Having the affair. Talking about it. Lying to his staff. His family. The citizens of South Carolina. Co-mingling business trips with personal trips. Public disclosure of intimate emails. Talking and lying some more. Feigning remorse. Prattling on about his "soulmate." Making the painful observation that he would try to fall in love with his wife again. So much talk.
Some free counsel: keep it in your pants, governor. Shut your pie hole. Try something else, I don't know, how about governing. Succeed publicly and fail privately. Get out of the news, pronto. Keep your schoolboy crushes to yourself. Respect your family. Tough it out.
Be a man.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Shut Up, Mark Sanford | ||||
| ||||
I've been looking for the right words for some time now, but it always comes off preachy. So instead I will rely upon the words of others, and keep things short. My gift to you!
Paul Hawken gave a brilliant graduation address to the students at the University of Portland. I urge you to take five minutes to read it. You may know Hawken for the company he co-founded, Smith and Hawken, which started out selling durable tools for living (today they sell stuff like patio furniture). I purchased a wonderful English garden spade from the company in 1983, and still use it regularly. Hawken is an investor, entrepreneur, environmentalist, a do-gooder in a world that needs lots of good to be done. Here's hoping that some of that rubs off on you.
Richard Edelman is President and CEO of Edelman, a leading international public relations firm. Read his advice for gaining entry to the public relations business. And while you're at it, grab the RSS feed for his blog, 6 A.M.
Pictured above: my daughter, Anna, 2009 graduate of Wichita East High School
Being a liar is probably the worst sin from a public relations perspective. But right next to lying is hubris, the notion that the rules don't apply to you, that your $#*t don't stink, that you can get away with something wrong through the sheer force of confidence.
Hubris is alive and well in government and business all across the world. Take a seasoned CEO with lots of power and money, stir in a cadre of "yes men," and it will grow like bacteria in a petri dish. You've probably seen it at some place where you work. If you were lucky, you got out alive.
Occasionally, however, you get a special case, in which there's a complete disconnect between bending the rules to suit your goals and totally smashing them. Like when 1988 Presidential hopeful Gary Hart, who was suspected of being a womanizer, said to the media, "go ahead, follow me." (they found him on a yacht named Monkey Business, engaged in ... well, monkey business, with a young-woman-not-his-wife, Donna Rice).
Like when OJ Simpson vowed to spend the rest of his life looking for the "real killer." Or when John Edwards tried to soften the impact of his infidelity, claiming that his wife's cancer was in remission at the time.
And who could forget Bill Clinton, saying directly to the camera, "I did not have sex with that woman."
And now we've got Rod Blagojevich, the colorful governor of Illinois, about to stand trial for impeachment. We've all heard the tapes of his conspiracy to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat, his plans for the op-ed page of the Chicago Tribune, and the cursing. Lots of cursing. That's a mighty big hole to climb out of.
But some people just don't give up. They see insurmountable odds, and to then it's just like walking across the street. Here's some of that hubris:
That's right, he's comparing himself to Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
Now Blago is taking his story to the cable news and TV talk shows, sharing his story of persecution, how the trial is fixed, and tossing off bombs like Oprah Winfrey for Senator. The TV hosts share looks of mock concern, but they're gleeful to join in this self-made execution. After all, it's Blago's words that will hang him, not theirs.
What's the take-away for a public relations professional? All you can do is watch and wonder. And inoculate yourself - and your clients - from hubris. Remember that your deeds matter more than your words. And that cameras and microphones are everywhere; showing trumps telling.
We see a horrible accident in slow motion. Here's what Blago sees:
There's only one Internet, and that makes it easier to effectively track your brand's reputation than ever before. Dan Schwabel takes a look at free tools for online reputation management in this article; this may be all the information you need. But if you're seeking enterprise-level support, here's Dan's rundown on paid tools, too. Alternately, you could hire a pro like Katie Payne. As Katie says, "if you treasure it, you must measure it."
Courtesy of Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog, here's some familiar material. Let's do better in 2009, please!
The U.S. automakers are again asking Congress for money, and public opinion thus far has been surprisingly negative about the prospect of more loans. So it really caught my ear when I heard Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm talk about the need for the loans on the NPR program Day to Day.
Granholm put on a clinic on how to handle the spokesperson role. If you've ever done it, you know how hard it is. Of course she was articulate and empathetic. But more than that, she framed the issue in a way that puts Americans - not the car companies - first. I suggest you click, listen and follow along. And learn. The interview runs just under eight minutes.
Here are Granholm's main points:
Frame it as an investment - the loan helps our economy, keeps people working, and helps the auto makers transition to a new economic environment with new (green) products.
Energy independence - the loan will help create American energy independence.
There will be blood - Granholm acknowledges that the auto industry is prepared to accept some downsizing, some loss of jobs. That takeway? The industry is sacrificing, just as all Americans are also sacrificing in this down economy.
Empathy - she shows acknowledges the pain caused by the transition in the auto industry. Many of the soon-to-be unemployed are Michigan residents.
Hang the problem on someone else - in this case, the financial industry, whose careless investments in housing have crashed, taking down the entire American economy. "We're victims, too."
Acknowledge past mistakes - shows humility, that the industry is capable of recognizing and learning from past mistakes.
Dire consequences - without the loan, it's "game over" for Detroit, says Granholm. It will also bring up to three million lost jobs on the industry. Again, mostly in Michigan.
Reiterate the key point - It's a loan, not a giveaway. Again, in contrast with the financial industry. She also brought up the case of Chrysler in the 1980s, which repaid its loan in full and with $300 million in interest to U.S. taxpayers.
Granholm is better suited to taking the case of the auto industry to the hill because:
- she's smart, well informed and articulate
- she's not from within the auto industry (for example, doesn't go to meetings by private jet)
- is able to tell the bigger story
There are many reasons to take issue with loaning more than $35 billion to the U.S. auto industry. Kudos to Jennifer Granholm for effectively representing why the loans would be good for America.
Attention public relations/marketing/IMC students: Here's a click that's worth your time. Brad J. Ward of Butler University asked his Twitter followers the question above. Here are the answers that came back. It's a lovely mosaic of truly useful information.
This kind of search is possible through the Twitter hashtag, which is frequently used for live tweeting of events. Everyone agrees to use a short alphanumeric code, preceded by the pound sign (#), so Twitter Search can find them all. Just enter the hastag as your search term. That way, you can read the tweets, even if you don't follow all of the individuals who are participating.
Sure enough, there's a website that keeps track of hashtags.
