lets blog off Tag

08 Nov

Posted at 09:18h in Uncategorized by
These days, the only job that seems to keep me interested is the one that combines quite a bit of disparate activity. In PR, we are part counselor, salesperson, troubleshooter, secretary, creative, mediator...you name it and we do it. As a kid I wasn't much different. I had two main career aspirations - surgeon and go-go dancer.  In some ways, dissection and dancing go hand in hand in the public relations business -  so maybe I'm not that far off from my childhood dreams. When I was 4, remember it was the sixties and go-go dancing was all the rage. I had the COOLEST pair of patent leather go-go boots, and the shimmeriest shiniest mini- skirt you've ever seen. Me and my friend Sheri would practice go-go dancing on the stone wall between our houses for hours. This is not unlike the activity involved with a pitch. Dress it up, make it snazzy, tap dance your way onto the phone with an editor and then hit 'em with your jazz hands. (Everyone, do your jazz hands now. You know you want to.) That's the outward appearance of PR to most people. We're glad handers, salespeople, we add the "ta da" to the "to do". But in reality, there's quite a bit more surgery involved than people are aware of.

01 Mar

Posted at 07:51h in Integrated Marketing by
Legacy seems to be a very popular name for marketing firms, or so I found out when I googled "marketing legacy" to try to get ideas for this blog post. Lyric Marketing's blog tells me in order to leave a good legacy I have to be authentic, provide valuable content, show my personality..I'm sure all these things are true but they really don't help me understand what that legacy thing actually is. The legal guys say it's a gift of personal property. The dictionary guys say it's anything handed down from the past. Christians seem to write a lot about leaving a good legacy for their children. Environmentalists talk about leaving a legacy that includes a healthier planet. eHow even has an article about leaving a good legacy through your writing. I once wrote about how marketing karma could help or hinder your business. I think I'm going to have to solve this "legacy" question by giving you a list of questions to ask yourself about your product or service. (And to be fair, I've answered them as well)

18 Jan

Posted at 09:05h in Integrated Marketing, Small Business by
letsblogoff_badgeI love this topic but thought I'd take a little twist on it today. After 16 years of a successful career in technology, I left corporate America in 2001 feeling stifled, sad and beaten down by the mini-recession that followed the tech bubble.  Although we were a young, vibrant company I realized that the larger we got, the less creative we became and the less willing we were (or our lawyers were) to think outside of the box. Since then, I've begun to work in a much more creative industry and I love it. I've had a few larger corporate clients but usually if I suggest something creative, it gets shot done because it might interrupt the process - I get that and I respect that. However for most bigger companies to continue to succeed, they will need to inject tolerance if not encouragement for creativity on the job. And cherish that creativity when it happens. I worked for a start-up in the early 1990's and we had some really creative thinkers on our team. These were guys who were technologists, but were able to think with both sides of their brain. So for me, creativity in a corporate sense always makes me think of  Paul, Shankaren, Ken, Salli...and many others.  We got the job done, but got it done in a new and fresh way. I've realized over the years it's easy to be creative in a creative profession, but to be creative in the corporate world takes real talent. Here's how we defined creativity back in the day: