Well Worth A Read: The 4-Hour Workweek

I am reading The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss. He's smart, he's funny, and he's so right about so many things.

The timing of my read is perfect---this week I'm working three hours every morning during a family trip to Palm Springs. The truncated timeframe is forcing me to be more focused and efficient--an approach that only hints at the insight and wisdom that Ferriss offers in his book.

If you are looking to become more productive in your work--and to take firmer control of designing your life--then his book is well worth checking out.

I'm always on the look-out for recommended reads: please take 10 seconds to e-mail me with a book suggestion.

Have you taken my "e-mail frequency" poll yet on LinkedIn? It takes another 10 seconds. Check it out here.

Biz Publication Includes My Social-Media Tips

Sometimes my work goes in streaks.

There have been times when I simultaneously represented four different medical providers--an obstetrician, a neurologist, a chiropractor and an acupuncturist.

In the past year, I've had a fair share of real estate-related work, both as a freelance writer for REALTOR magazine and as a publicist for the irrepressible Roz Byrne (check out this "Wizard of Roz" blog post here) and Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate Gloor Realty.


A recent Gloor release published in Triblocal's print edition is to the left here.

Lately, though, the trend could be summed up in three words: Social Media Central. The latest is a story in this week's edition of The Business Ledger, a weekly publication in the western suburbs of Chicago that quotes from some of my recent social-media training tips.

If you check out the story, by Associate Editor Sherri Dauskurdas, you will see it doesn't shy away from packing some social-media name-dropping punch in its headline: "Twitter away hours while LinkedIn to Facebook."

LinkedIn Survey Feature Shows Promise

With each passing day, it seems, something new emerges in the social-media realm. Or, to be more accurate, a new tweak comes to my attention for the first time.

Two weeks ago, it was my discovery that you can create surveys on LinkedIn, the professional-networking site.

Immediately, I did what I suggest anyone do when they want to see if any given application is worthwhile: I gave the new discovery a test drive by setting up a survey.

Of all things, I created a poll about folks' use of LinkedIn: "What do you primarily seek from your LinkedIn experience?"

The four choices I offered: Biz/employment opportunities, Receive Recommendations, A Social Outlet, and Innovative Ideas. (LinkedIn rotates the order in which those choices appear, by the way, to ensure I'm not steering people in any overwhelming fashion.)

So far, here are the results. As of this morning, 78 people had replied--certainly almost, if not, all from my own network, though you can enable, as I did, anyone on LinkedIn to answer your survey.

LinkedIn does all the work of categorizing the responses by gender, age, job title, job function and company size. In addition, 14 people have chimed in with supplemental comments.

As embryonic as the process has been for me, already I can see a variety of benefits flowing out of these surveys. Among them:

1. The collection of original data, tailored to your needs, for business or personal purposes.

2. Opening up a dialogue revolving around common interests.

3. Establishing your expertise, via the content contained in the questions as well as via your interpretation and commentary of the data flowing from the questions.

4. Expanding your network. Over the past two weeks, I have experienced a rise in the number of people seeking to LinkIn with me. Part of that increase, I suspect, is attributable to my survey question.

Want to take the survey? Get on LinkedIn, then click on the survey results link.

Time To `De-Link' a Non-Responsive Contact?

Last week, I recommended three people who had recently LinkedIn with me, bringing the tally of folks I've endorsed to nearly 50. For me, the quality of my contacts is much more important than the quantity.

In fact, I'm mulling whether to drop one individual from my LinkedIn roster after he did not respond to an introduction--as well as a follow-up e-mail--that I made on behalf of another one of my LinkedIn contacts.

What gives? What would you do?

In an Inside Edge PR post from last year, I outlined my philosophy of why I write recommendations for as many of my LinkedIn contacts as possible. In another post, I shared some of the how.

Lastly, for a look at the recommendations I've made on LinkedIn, go here.

Paulson: Keep Newspaper Struggles In Context

"Context."

If reporters and editors walk out of my "Go Figure: Making Numbers Count" seminars with only one word retained in their memory banks, then that's the one I wish for.

For the umpteenth time over the past eight years, that was among the points I shared on Friday. In other words, numbers communicated in isolation--without any frame of reference--are dangerous, potentially misleading, frequently useless, and bear a variety of other story-warping ills.

(You can check out a few excerpts of the session, at the New York Press Association's annual convention in Saratoga Springs, on my Go Figure: Making Numbers Count blog.)

As it turns out, the convention's keynote speaker, Ken Paulson, (pictured with me, after his talk) emphasized the same point.

The editor of USA Today and USAToday.com from 2004 until a few months ago, Paulson is now president and COO of the Newseum. When he used the "C" word, Paulson was discussing another subject--the ostensibly imminent extinction of newspapers.

He didn't specify the publications by name, but some developments that came to my mind include the recent spate of bankruptcies (see: Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times) and closings (to wit: the Rocky Mountain News, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) among major newspapers.

The latest punch in the journalism gut, just this past weekend, comes from my original stomping grounds, as The Boston Globe is now in apparent peril (or at least being tough-talked in labor negotiations with its corporate parent, The New York Times Co.)

While noting that he was not seeking to minimize the real financial and other challenges besetting newspapers, Paulson remarked, "The sky is not falling."

He pointed out that baseball card sales have declined 71 percent since 2000. "In other words, it's not just us," said Paulson. "You look at anybody who published a product on paper and they're in the fight of their lives."

"You have to separate the troubled economy from the challenges we may face as an industry," Paulson added. "It's also probably worth noting that the people who are predicting the demise of newspapers the most are on cable television and are bloggers, and it's in their interests to suggest we don't have a bright future."

But perhaps the most intriguing and thought-provoking part of Paulson's keynote was his parallel-universe account of the 21st century introduction of the newspaper (had Johannes Gutenberg invented the digital modem instead of the mechanical printing press.)

In a humorous 2 1/2-minute riff, Paulson reeled off a list of strengths and benefits from "the invention of a new product called the newspaper."

Among his list was portability, a virus-free environment, "no annoying pop-up ads" and "a painstaking new process called fact-checking in which we actually verify information before we pass it along to you."

You can view a portion of Paulson's talk below:

In Bulldog Reporter: `Words Still Matter'

Late last year, the Medill School of Journalism solicited input from alumni about the future of journalism. I shared some thoughts at the time, but knew it was an incomplete effort.

That's almost always the way with the stories I write--the feeling that more could be done. Now, at least, those original ruminations have expanded into fuller form.

They appear today in Bulldog Reporter's Barks & Bites, in an essay bearing the headline, Words Still Matter in a Web 2.0 World: The Future of Journalism and PR Lie in Storytelling.

I invite you to check it out, and offer your perspective, either on the Bulldog Reporter site or via the Inside Edge PR blog.

My Growth Formula: Complex Assignments

If you're not growing, you're shrinking.

I am a firm believer in this truth, and it's part of what fuels me every day to learn as much as possible.

This morning, as I listened to Malcom Gladwell's "Outliers"--the supremely talented author reads the book himself--I was struck by his mention of the three elements that add up to work fulfillment.

They are autonomy, complexity, and a relationship between work and reward.

The second piece of that equation, complexity, is what I enjoy most about the ongoing assignment I have with the Chicago chapter of the Urban Land Institute.

Since September, I have had five opportunities to tackle what is (for me, anyway) the complex task of distilling more than an hour's worth of ULI discussion into a cohesive 1,000- to 1,200-word summary. You can read my reports, including the one from last Thursday's session, here.

Having covered government bodies for the better part of two decades, I have a finely tuned ear to what a variety of people say, and how it all fits into the larger web of all that is said. But because ULI talks encompass topics with which I have little familiarity, the process presents an entirely new challenge.

Although ULI gives me two days to file a summary, I usually file my report within six hours. The rapid turn-around isn't as noble as it may seem--I am eager to flesh out the session in writing before the impression of what I just learned fades to gray.

Marching Out On a Social Media Note

It's been a social-media kind of day here at Inside Edge PR international headquarters.

Walked a block down the street to Marion Street Cheese Market, where I shared some pointers on how to navigate on Facebook, LinkedIn and the like, at "Social Networking Sites--Are You Connected?"

Shared photos and some text with Triblocal.com,as well as with Helen Karakoudas at the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest.

Later in the day, I learned from my social-media mentor, Sherri Lasko, that creating a Facebook Fan page is a piece of cake.

So now, as of 11 p.m., the Inside Edge PR fan base tally is on the verge of breaking into double-digits. For those scoring at home, that means seven people other than me and my wife have taken the plunge.

By the way, if you're curious, or even interested, in becoming a fan, the best suggestion I can give for finding the Inside Edge PR fan page is to log into Facebook and type "Inside Edge PR" into the search box.

I am confident that within a few days, I'll have learned another, much more efficient route. And that brings to mind one of the inelegant messages I shared with those who jammed inside MSCM this morning: this social-media world is a continual journey of learning something, trying it out, seeing if it works, then moving on to the next thing.

Stay tuned for what tomorrow brings.

The Five Stages Of Facebook Grief

On Tuesday, I will be giving a presentation to Oak Park-area business owners on the use of social media in business.

As part of my preparation, I was struck by the sense of dread that Facebook and its social-networking brethren routinely strike in the hearts of many business owners that I encounter.

Today, there are those who are kicking and screaming as they join Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media. Their behavior is marked by so much reluctance and trepidation that I couldn't help but create an adaptation of Kübler-Ross' Five Stages of Grief model.

What follows, then, are The Five Stages Of “Good Grief, Do I Really Need To Be on Facebook?”


1. Denial and Isolation.

At first, we tend to deny that the expansion of Facebook, from high school and college students, has taken place. We may withdraw from our usual social-networking contacts. This stage may last a few moments, or longer, especially if someone "pokes" us or tries to goad us into a virtual snowball fight.

2. Anger.
The grieving person may then be furious at Al Gore for inventing the Internet (even though he never said he did), or at the cyber-world, for letting online social interactions happen. He may be angry with himself for ever getting an e-mail account, even if, realistically, nothing could have stopped it.

3. Bargaining.

Now the grieving person may make bargains, such as this one: "If I join Facebook, can I at least stop hearing about this thing called Twitter?"

4. Depression.
When prompted by the ridiculously open-ended “What’s on your mind?” or the terse command "Write something," the person feels numb, although anger and sadness may remain underneath.

5. Acceptance.

This is when the anger, sadness and mourning have tapered off. The person simply accepts the reality that he will forevermore be in touch with hundreds, if not thousands, of people for the rest of his life. And what's more, he actually likes it.

He starts a Fan Page of an obscure 16th-century poet.

Provocative Keywords Help Spark Attention

What's in a name?

The ability to attract attention, for one thing.

This morning I was reviewing the 150-odd (some odder than others) videos on my YouTube channel.

Most of them stem from public-relations outreach I've povided for clients, such as Downtown Oak Park's mass dog wedding (a Guinness World Record attempt) in November 2008, I Do, Doggone It!

Continuing a pattern that emerged immediately after I uploaded those pooch-related videos nearly five months ago, the one with "Same-Sex Dog Marriages" in the title has easily outdistanced the other seven I Do, Doggone It! videos.

As of this morning, the same-sex clip (featuring my rather hoarse voice after a frenetic day of PR madness) had 1,318 views. By comparison, some of the other bow-vow clips, with not-so-provocative titles, are under 200 views, though a few are approaching 1,000.

How's this for an attention-grabbing title that may be in my YouTube channeling future: "AIG Bernie Madoff Rush Limbaugh Same-Sex Pro-Life Bailout Plan."

I should note, however, that the video would truly need to touch on all of the above-mentioned elements, perhaps a tongue-in-cheek first-person commentary that ties them all together (with extra-durable rope).

Provocatively named videos really ought to reflect the actual content of the video itself. Otherwise, you run a great risk in breeding resentment, which is typically not a very helpful PR tactic.

A Decade of Self-Employment: My Top 10 List

Today marks the 10th anniversary of my last day as an employee.

After eight years at The Courier News in Elgin, Ill. (then a Copley Newspaper), I resigned on March 26, 1999 to pursue a freelance marketing and writing path. Over the past decade, I've been most fortunate, with encouragement and all manners of support from my fantastic wife, Bridgett, to be able to maintain my self-employed status.

Things haven't always worked out as I planned. In fact, it's usually turned out even better.

Oftentimes, that is because I was willing to listen to the marketplace when it told me that it wasn't interested in my ideas. Then, the marketplace would add, "But, hey, if you might be able to do XYZ, would you be interested?"

Almost always, whether it's providing marketing services for a couple looking to adopt a baby girl or helping a restaurant boost its sales, my answer has been, "You bet!"

I have never applied for a job, and I have never seriously thought of doing so. My entrepreneurial streak is too strong, and the wide-ranging work has just been too fun to ever look back.

Here, then, is a Top 10 List of Self-Employment Memories, listed in no particular order, over the past 10 years.

1. From 2000 to 2004, roving around the Midwest for Time magazine in pursuit of interviews with the likes of Tiger Woods, The Smiley Face Bomber's college buddies and basketball phenom LeBron James (as a high school senior and later during his rookie season in the NBA).


2. Covering a variety of towns and cities for the Chicago Tribune (1999-2005, with a little work thereafter). After the August 2003 birth of my twin children, Zachary and Maggie Rose, I would often type up my reports with one of them sleeping in my lap.

3. Moving my office from the living room to the second bedroom to Panera and, then, in June 2007, to my current "real office" location a few miles from home.

4. Joining the Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce in October 2005 to promote my personalized story service,
Your Front Page.

While the service has not quite captured the public's imagination (yet), that first Chamber meeting led to a great six-month gig as community relations liaison for Boston Market's healthier-food prototype experiment in River Forest.

5. In the summer of 2006, joining Oak Park Partners, a chapter of Business Networking International (BNI) whose purpose is to provide client referrals to one another.

The affiliation has surrounded me with top individuals who have not only referred numerous clients to me, but have also inspired me to develop myself professionally.

6. Realizing in late 2006 that, OK, I guess it was all right to call myself a publicist. After more than 20 years as a diehard journalist, this was no simple step. Of course, my entire Inside Edge philosophy revolves around the journalistic information-gathering and story-telling style.

7. Following a suggestion by a former editor, Scott Stone (now a Daily Herald VP) and creating a math literacy seminar for journalists, Go Figure: Making Numbers Count.

That move has sent me all around the country since 2001, training the media (usually at state press association conventions) as I share my passion for telling stories skillfully, ethically and responsibly. My next training is in eight days, at the New York Press Association convention in Saratoga Springs.

8. In October 1999, getting published in Sports Illustrated, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. The brief item on the Home Run Power Ratio, a baseball statistic I created, provided me with a much-needed confidence boost.

9. In January 2007, catching on with Five Seasons Sports Club as the publicist for its Northbrook and Burr Ridge clubs, and immediately helping secure global coverage for a Guinness World Record attempt.

10. Delivering phone books one day in November 1999. I got a bonus for being extra-diligent in securing signatures from recipients!

I have certainly overlooked dozens of other worthy candidates. But there's always my Top 20 list, due for release on March 26, 2019.

A Bounce-Back PR Tale, In More Ways Than One

Whenever I agree to represent a business, it must pass my "newsroom vet litmus test."

In other words, if I were writing for a newspaper or magazine and someone pitched the story to me, would I be genuinely interested in at least digging into story suggestions about this company?

In September, after a client, Robust Promotions of Villa Park, found me via my LinkedIn account, I knew in short order that the answer, in terms of its news potential, was a resounding "yes!"

So I was more than a little baffled by the media's luke-warm response to the firm's story, which teems with relevance and newsworthiness.

Over the past few years, Robust Promotions has helped nearly 100 restaurant chains boost sales via repeat business by creating innovative scratch-to-win cards.

Talk about a local small business making good--and playing a key role in helping numerous other businesses survive and even thrive amid these trying times. Fortunately, the Chicago Tribune's online user-generated adjunct website, Triblocal has emerged with a weekly print edition in 10 zones spanning 50 communities throughout the region.

This development has given more than a few of my releases a second bite at the media-coverage apple. This time around, the story got picked up. You can read about the piece on Triblocal's Villa Park community page. As of this writing, some 80 people have clicked on the story.

Or, if you are one of the roughly 13,000 Trib print edition subscribers in Elmhurst, Lombard or Villa Park, it's on page 5 of the March 19-25 Triblocal print edition.

Any Chicago-area business or group that is not factoring in the increasingly aggressive Triblocal into its media-outreach strategy, both online and in print, is squandering its external communications potential.

Versatile Pitches Provide Multiple PR Options

Whenever you can offer the media a story suggestion that has versatility--it can be a human interest feature, a health and wellness story, and a business piece, for example--then it provides you with bigger placement potential.

In other words, if a given outlet isn't interested in the story under Category A, then you still have a chance that it will be deemed a fit for Category B or C.

A recent news release that I developed for Five Seasons Sports Club in Burr Ridge fits this description. I wrote about a corporate wellness program that Five Seasons has launched, with the release detailing the experience that corporate neighbor Turtle Wax, based in Willowbrook, has enjoyed with the club.

You can read the release at Triblocal.com as well as see the Triblocal photo gallery I created.

Included in the story is a video of one of Turtle Wax's employees talking about how the program has helped improve his health. Check out the interview on YouTube here.

Social Media Create New Adoption Options

A recent CNN.com story on innovative social-media approaches to adopting children is just the latest example of how our world has drastically changed in recent years.

I've documented numerous examples, in this blog and elsewhere, that underscore how the collective "traditional" media is no longer the sole arbiter of what is newsworthy. (News flash! ANYONE can create their own printing press or video channel these days.)

Likewise, adoption agencies, all too many of which have financially preyed upon the hopes and dreams of those seeking to start families, are now far from the only game in town.

And that welcome development is thanks largely to sites like Facebook and YouTube and LinkedIn, as well as other sites that foster viral FOAFOAF (friend of a friend of a friend) communications.

I recently began helping a wonderful Chicago-area couple seeking to take this very path. They have two sons already (one biologically, one via adoption) and their heartfelt desire is to add a girl to their family.

More details to come, but in the meantime, if you know of anyone who may be a match for them, please shoot me an email at matt@insideedgepr.com or call me at 708-860-1380.

PR As Hoops: Following Your Own Shot

Playing basketball over the years, I've been pretty adept at offensive rebounding, even if I was no Dennis Rodman (pictured). Often, it's because I've known better than anyone else on the court exactly how that shot I just took was going to careen wildly off the rim.

I try to adopt the same mindset in life--following up with new acquaintances, old friends and assorted family members in my personal life and, of course, the media in my professional pursuits.

Once they say "yes" to a story, then there's a fair chance they'll say "sure, why not?" if I suggest a follow-up piece months or even years later.

When I was a newspaper reporter, a solid chunk of my work was following up on one story or another, whether it was my "Where Are They Now?" columns for The (Elgin, Ill.) Courier News in the early 1990s or keeping track of criminal cases, municipal matters or any variety of news threads that I, or even a colleague, had begun at some point in the past.

This all comes to mind on the heels of Windy City Sports'
recent feature story on Wayne Arner.

He is a member of Five Seasons Sports Club in Northbrook, a client of mine. There, Wayne has transformed his fitness level over the past 2 1/2 years from overweight and easily fatigued to his current stature as a rock-hard triathlete to be reckoned with.

What's so fun about Wayne's story is that it's far from over--he's just now beginning to hit his stride. And now that he's been featured in publications like Pioneer Press and Windy City Sports, and on sites like Triblocal.com, there's a natural media interest in checking in on how he's faring, in order to update readers.

I've promised Wayne we won't use up all of his 15 minutes of fame, but I'll do my best to fill up as much of that span as possible!

A First: My Numbers Cameo In GO Magazine

A few times over the years, I've pitched airline magazines with story ideas. Alas, none of those overtures have, um, gotten off the ground.

But I recently had the good fortune of being quoted in GO Magazine, AirTran Airways' inflight magazine.

Some of my observations about numbers, and their interplay with we humans, formed the basis for a sidebar ("Prime Numbers") that freelance journalist Geoff Williams wrote, accompanying his engaging main piece, "The Importance of Numbers: 5 Reasons You Will Read This Article."

To read the entire package, you can find the main story and sidebar in GO Magazine's online archives.

To see the sidebar as it appeared in print, click on the image that runs alongside this post.

For a sample of my numeracy writing, under my "Go Figure: Making Numbers Count" training program for journalists and other professionals, you can read this piece on the Inside Edge PR website's Resources page.

(Special thanks to Brooke Porter, GO Magazine's managing editor, for graciously providing me with the copy of the article and granting permission for me to blog about it.)

Hyper-Oprah Messaging A Sign of The Times

When I was starting out as a newspaper reporter, Ronald Reagan was in his first term as U.S. President, there were three main choices on television and “hyperlocal journalism” meant that I had a lot of energy pedaling my bicycle around town in pursuit of my next story for the Marshfield (Ma.) Mariner.

But now “hyperlocal” is part of our desperately fragmented communications culture. Media outlets, especially newspapers, are busily trying to outdo one another with coverage of your backyard—and if that’s not personal enough, maybe even that patch of dirt on the edge of your backyard (with photos and bar charts!).

Today’s Chicago Tribune included a piece by Bonnie Miller Rubin (“Pitch writ large aimed at Oprah”) that highlighted an advertising companion to this approach. Let’s call it Hyper-Oprahism.

A charitable organization that has tried to get her attention via the traditional route (pitching stories to her show’s producers for a decade) placed seven billboard ads that were addressed specifically to Oprah:

"Oprah, 3 million children with clefts need our help,” declares The Smile Train message. ”We need yours."

Though the gurus at Harpo Productions are still declining to profile the group, the Trib’s piece—and the guaranteed spin-off stories it will spawn—can’t help but boost the organization’s fund-raising efforts.

In the end, The Smile Train should be smiling even more broadly--and so will anyone who takes a cue from their out-of-the-box approach.

The Art of Contacting Reporters By Phone

For the first time over a six-month span, encompassing story pitches for four different clients, I reached one particular reporter yesterday at the Chicago Sun-Times.

She had never responded to any of my prior messages, neither my well-crafted and eminently timely e-mails nor my professional and succint voicemails directing her attention to those e-mails.

Of course, when she picked up the phone this time around, I read her the riot act, chastising her for being so inconsiderate and failing to recognize a helpful publicist when one was right under her nose.

(If you believe that tale of mine, then let me recommend you trust all your life savings with my financial adviser, Bernie Madoff.)

In reality, after introducing myself to the reporter, I asked if she had 30 seconds to hear why I was touching base. Politely, she replied that she needed to make a phone call right away.

"I understand entirely," I said. "I just wanted to let you know that I'll be sending you a story idea that I think you'd be interested in. I'll follow up with you another time."

Before I hung up, she hastened to make sure I knew her e-mail address.

This vignette underscores three points I make regularly to my clients, as well as audiences that attend my PR workshops:

1. As the individual making the story suggestion, you want to get off the phone before the reporter, editor or producer really wishes you were out of their face.

This no-nonsense, fast-paced style respects the reality of the media member's time, and it sets you apart from the many long-winded blowhards that place a stress on their already-burdened schedule. Asking if a reporter is on deadline signals to them that you know their world, and sets you on a path toward establishing that you are a peer worthy of respect and consideration.

2. Rarely do you get a reporter to agree to pursue a story in the phone call. He or she will always want to review more information before making such a decision.

So the phone call's purpose is to plant a promising seed (that a follow-up e-mail will nurture in short order), not bring home the harvest a few moments after the seed has gone into the soil.

3. Except in rare instances, whether your call results in a conversation or only a voicemail, always be ready to follow up immediately (within 60 seconds is a good idea) with a well-written news pitch or release.

Securing media coverage is the result of winning small victories along the way, and one such triumph is having the reporter refrain from deleting your e-mail without giving it more than a glance.

If they recognize the e-mail as coming from a professional who also took a few moments to phone them, then your story's chances of moving beyond the embryonic stage climb exponentially.

For related PR advice, see Inside Edge PR Tips: 4 Myths To Combat Along the Way.

A Story About Unintended Consequences

I am in the midst of outreach with the media about a story looking at unintended consequences--how the "Back to Sleep" campaign to prevent SIDS-related deaths has contributed to an uptick in "flat head syndrome, or plagiocephaly.

A portion of the effort, which I'm undertaking with Plunkett & Associates on behalf of Scheck & Siress, is online at Triblocal.com.

PR Focus: Picture this....and this...and this

For more than a year, I have helped McAdam Landscaping share stories about the breadth, depth and quality of its work with the Chicago-area media, as well as nationally.

Increasingly, a pivotal part of that story can be told via photographs, such as ones that are included in this post.

The photos were among those that led to McAdam's receiving an award for commercial maintenance from the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association.

Media outlets provide simple tools for posting multiple photographs to complement written content, and it's an avenue that companies and organizations ought to capitalize on more often.

North Shore magazine, for example, is interested in printing a few photographs from a charity fundraiser that was held in January at Five Seasons Sports Club in Northbrook, another Inside Edge PR client.

At sites like Triblocal.com, there are "photo gallery" features that enable anyone to post a variety of photographs that showcase any given story.

You can see samples of some recent Inside Edge PR photo postings here and here.

A Mega-Fun News Release On Biz Program

As anyone who knows me well can attest, my life the past three months has often revolved around coordinating the Shop the Village program that debuted in Oak Park.

Today marks a high point of the campaign, which has been focused on stimulating commerce among more than 100 participating merchants from across the community. On Sunday afternoon, an Oak Park couple discovered that they are holding the Mega-Gift ticket, worth more than $4,000 in gifts, services and other prizes.

The couple, Paul and Polly Grimes, e-mailed me shortly thereafter and we coordinated a meeting today, where I confirmed they had the winning ticket and passed along all the prizes.

The Grimeses shared a delightful story that thrust me gladly back into the role of reporter as I interviewed them to develop a news release that I issued this afternoon to the local media.

At Triblocal.com, you can read the Inside Edge PR news release about the Grimeses' story.

Amid Steroid Era, Aaron's Legacy Shines

The other day, I saw a fantastic cartoon by Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

It shows a huge Hank Aaron, the all-time baseball great, towering over the likes of steroid-taking cheaters Barry Bonds (technically, but scandalously, the all-time home run king), Alex "A-Fraud" Rodriguez, Mark McGwire and Roger Clemens.

As you can see by clicking on the image above, the quote bubble coming from Rodriguez reads: "How come when WE take steroids, HE gets bigger?"

It's quite a different scenario than 1998.

That is the year McGwire and Sammy Sosa captivated baseball fans with their single-season home run record chase. At the time, I was a reporter for The Courier News in Elgin, Ill., and wrote a column called "By the Numbers."

It was all the excuse I needed to research 80 years of baseball's most fearsome sluggers' statistics, to see how McGwire, Sosa and others stacked up against history.

Along the way, I invented the Home Run Power Ratio, a home run inflation index that enables relevant comparisons between players from various generations by objectively gauging how they fared against their peers.

I wrote various pieces on the HRPR, including one for a grand baseball publication called The Elysian Fields Quarterly.

Then, at the end of the 1999 season, Sports Illustrated, published
a brief piece, "Home Run Standouts," on the HRPR.

Alas, the numbers don't seem so objective any longer, as revelations about steroid use continue to dog some of the game's biggest names.


The latest is Rodriguez, the heir apparent to the career home run record. Long known as "A-Rod," he will forevermore have to live with the "A-Fraud" label.

And in terms of legacy and reputation, that's one development impossible to fully measure.

My Two Cents on Humor's Pivotal PR Role

Last Friday, when I let newspaper editor Helen Karakoudas know that I had a "timely and hilarious" news release coming her way, she immediately gravitated to the "hilarious" half of that promise.

"Now you've got my interest," said Karakoudas, managing editor of Wednesday Journal, Inc.

I was referring to my effort on behalf of Charo's Hair Design and Day Spa, involving former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his wellspring of hair.

Karakoudas posted the story on the paper's web site a few hours later, and the media ball had begun rolling.

Communicating with a sense of humor, clearly, is an immense aid, no matter who you are and no matter what your professional (or amateur) pursuit.

When I was a newspaper reporter, having a sense of humor was an indispensable part of how I built rapport with people, either one-time interviewees or long-term sources.

Did they always appreciate my humor? I strongly doubt it. But at least I tried, and it's something that I continually strive to weave in to my everyday interactions as I meet a steady stream of new people, from prospective clients to folks riding the elevator with me to dealings with the cashier at Trader Joe's.

In my experience, the key is authenticity--to work with whatever humor God gave you, and not try too hard. In sports, this is called "letting the game come to you." In day-to-day life, it springs forth from being an active, attentive listener--not constantly thinking of what I will say next--and identifying the lighter side of things.

On the sense-of-humor front, publicist Wayne Pollard wrote an essay that appeared in today's Bulldog Reporter. And guess what? Not only does it contain excellent content, but it's quite funny, too.

I highly recommend you read Pollard's piece, "Tough Times Call for Laughter: Obama and Reagan Got It—Why Doesn't PR?"

Client Sets Sights--And Shears--On Blago

Public relations can get you into some hairy situations, but in the case of a new Inside Edge PR client, Theresa Charo, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

She has set her sights--and her shears--on former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and it's triggered an immediate media reaction. More on that momentarily, but first, a recap about Blago:

Perhaps even more than his troubles with federal investigators, he is noted by Americans for his over-healthy crop of hair. For more than two months, his mop-top has been the butt of jokes, digs, jibes and snipes.


Seemingly unfazed and certainly unbowed, Blago has stared down his critics, all the while peering from beneath the thick, dark tresses that conceal his forehead as he declares his innocence.

So it was only a matter of time before someone tapped into widespread public sentiment that the ex-public official could benefit from a haircut--and possibly even a complete Kojak (for youngsters unfamiliar with the term, that's the 1970s TV series starring bald actor Telly Savalas).

With that in mind, you can read an Inside Edge PR news release about Charo, owner of Charo's Hair Design & Day Spa in Elmwood Park, Ill. The story, which received more than 1,000 views at Triblocal.com in less than 36 hours this weekend, relates how Charo has extended an offer to cut not only Blagojevich's hair, but also his wife Patti's and their two daughters' hair.

As the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest noted on Friday afternoon, Charo has even pledged to donate $1,000 if Blago agrees to go Bald-o.

C'mon, admit it, you'd kick in a few bucks if it meant seeing his hair scattered on a salon floor, right?

To see Ms. Charo elaborating on her offer, visit a link to the letter she sent Blagojevich on Friday and/or click on the video below:

Shop the Village's Mega-Gift Moment

It's been quite a three-month journey with Oak Park's "Shop the Village" and it's coming close to an end.

Last night was the Mega-Gift Drawing, with one ticket out of the estimated 83,000 tickets (about $2.1 million worth of shopping) generated by the program worth $4,000 in prizes from each of the more than 100 participating businesses.

Time will tell who holds the valuable ticket, as I noted on the Shop the Village website and as was reported by the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest, a huge ally in our program.

A lesson re-learned last night: it's never too late to ask for help.

About 10 minutes before the festivities were to begin, I asked an employee of Park National Bank, the event host, if they had a drawing drum so we could use something appropriately classy instead of the motley gray bucket into which I'd crammed the 83,000 tickets.

A few minutes later, after a search of the basement, she hauled up the drawing drum that we used. Of course, as the photo shows, we had a heck of a time squeezing all the tickets through the small, square gate.

Timely PR: A `Real Estate Reality Check'

It's hardly news to report that real estate values have declined lately.

But if you find a local, specific angle on that general state of affairs, and back it up with some reliable statistics, it can become news to your target audience.

And better still, because you are taking the lead in disseminating the hard data, you automatically position yourself as being at the forefront of transparent communication about this sensitive issue.

And that can't be too bad for business at a time when trust is such a precious commodity. These ruminations date back to a month ago, when one of my newer clients, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gloor Realty, told me it was about to issue its second postcard in a new series called "real estate reality check."

The firm's president, Richard C. Gloor, asked that I proofread the new piece, which I was happy to do. But I also strongly recommended that we go even further and develop a news release highlighting what his firm is doing.

The result was a news release that struck a chord with Bill Cunniff of the Chicago Sun-Times, who wrote a piece, based on the "reality check." The Sun-Times real estate piece appeared in the Sunday, Feb. 8 edition.

To read the full news release, visit Triblocal.com, which lays out what Gloor is doing "to champion candid communication" about the real-estate market. (I couldn't resist the alliterative temptation.)

I also created a blog, Oak Park-River Forest-Forest Park Real Estate, so that anyone can review the raw data that is behind content in the release--an essential element when striving to communicate transparently.

WSL Profiles Five Seasons Sports Club Duo

One of my clients, Five Seasons Sports Club in Burr Ridge, received prominent mention in the current issue of West Suburban Living Magazine, a classy publication that focuses on, well, the western suburbs of Chicago.

It came about in November, when managing editor Brittany Ashcroft asked if I had any candidates for a profile on individuals who "use more unique exercises and routines to stay fit." Through nominations provided by Dawn Hanson, the club's fitness director at the time, I hooked up the magazine with John Monacella and Lisa Scafido.

They are featured early on in the piece by Laura Otto, which you can read by clicking on the images below.





Reprinted with permission. West Suburban Living Magazine Jan./Feb. 2009.

Obama's FOIA Move Holds Key PR Lesson

Though he may well have been driven by even loftier motives, shortly after taking office two weeks ago, President Barack Obama made a decision that, from a public-relations standpoint, was most astute.

To read my piece, "Obama's FOIA Move Holds Key PR Lesson: Open the Front Door," check out the essay at BulldogReporter.com.

Myths To Combat Along The PR Journey

On Monday, through the Small Business Networking Event held at the Oak Park (Ill.) Public Library, I will be sharing public-relations tips with business owners, entrepreneurs and those seeking to launch enterprises of various kinds.

Among the points I will convey are four myths that can sidetrack individuals and organizations from attaining genuine PR success.

Here's one: It’s all about the press release.

Reality: First of all, the proper term is “news release,” since the press is only one of the targets, anyway. In addition, the news release is simply one part—often, but not always, an integral part—of a multi-pronged approach to increasing your target market’s awareness.

Other vital elements to get your message across:

*Creating a professional, dynamic website that clearly communicates what makes your product or service superior to and distinctive from your competitors;

*Understanding what the various media need in a story and then going all-out to fulfill those cravings with timely, localized, visually compelling material.

*Identifying Internet venues where you can connect directly with your audience, such as contributing to a blog, creating a blog of your own, or posting a video on sites like YouTube.

There are numerous other myths and misunderstandings about PR, including:

*If your publicist has strong media connections, then don’t worry about having a great news hook.

*The publicist’s top goal should be media placement—getting as many stories told through the media as possible.

*PR is a contact sport—the key is to flood as many media outlets with your story, then cross your fingers that some will be interested.

For more specifics about the nature of those myths, you can find, on the Resources page of the Inside Edge PR website, PR Success Tips: 4 Myths To Combat Along The Way.

Godin Offers Take On Newspapers' Future

Evidence of the decline of newspapers--as we now know them, anyway--is all around us, both locally and nationally.

Pioneer Press, the chain of weekly newspapers that has been around for more than a century, just shut down a dozen of its papers throughout the Chicago region. Last week, three Pioneer editors I have been in regular touch with the past two years were among 10 top editors who received pink slips.

Amid that dour news, I recently came across "When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?" a blog post featuring some refreshing insights from marketing maven Seth Godin.

One point he makes about journalism, and which I wholeheartedly agree with: "Punchline: if we really care about the investigation and the analysis, we'll pay for it one way or another."

Still very much in flux: just what that business model will look like.

Political Pundit Proft Offers Unique Blago Blast

Four years ago, toward the end of my stint covering the storied town of Cicero for the Chicago Tribune, I first crossed paths with Dan Proft.

He was the campaign manager who helped engineer Larry Dominick's upset victory over incumbent Ramiro Gonzalez as town president and since then he has served as the town's spokesman, among other duties.

In basketball, I've come to appreciate Dan's set-shot abilities from 22 feet and beyond, though he really does need to work on his drive to the hoop.


And in the arena of political commentary, he continually finds a fresh take on things, rife with historical context, pop culture references that span the generations and some well-justified cynicism (after all, in the wake of the Jack Ryan-for-U.S. Senate meltdown five years ago, Proft was stuck with Alan Keyes as the Republican nominee/sacrificial lamb against Barack Obama.)

Today's Proft commentary, as part of his ongoing observations that air on the Don Wade & Roma Morning Show on WLS Radio AM-890, offered a hilarious take on the imminent departure of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Take a few minutes to see how Proft weaves in Ted Kennedy driving off a cliff, a swipe at actor Dermot Mulroney, and the phrase "gaggle of middle-aged, man-hating shrews in sensible shoes" into his commentary, "The Circus Won't Be The Same."

The link also provides an audio option, for those interested in gleaning the full effect of Proft's sardonic jabs.

Blah-Blah Blago Takes His Cue From Drew

Emperor Rod Blagojevich at this very moment, instead of defending himself before the Illinois Legislature as it proceeds with an impeachment hearing, is in the midst of making the national media rounds.

As Rex Huppke so ably noted in a story that appears in the Jan. 26 edition of the Chicago Tribune, Blah Blah Blago's talk-show tour is much like the path blazed in November 2007 by that other notable Illinois creep, suspected murderer Drew Peterson, about whom I wrote a few months ago.

And though he is the Emperor Without Any Clues, Blah-Blah must surely know that he is simply the Freak Show of the moment, having just begun to tap into his 15 minutes of infamy.

He has even stated that he knows his days as Illinois governor are numbered ("the fix is in," he self-pities). Left unsaid, but clearly understood, is that he only has so large of a window he can jump through before the media moves on to the next heel.

The Emperor's PR team, which includes the same shameless publicity crew that is representing the aforementioned Peterson, may well be pleading with the staff of Oprah to let Rod on her show.

Of course, Blah-Blah today divulged what he surely knew would reap headline play across this celeb-obsessed land. While appearing for an interview on Good Morning America, he let slip a slight smile as he told Diane Sawyer that he considered approaching Oprah Winfrey to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Obama.

Maybe the Emperor's supplicants and enablers could propose tying in his Oprah appearance with the talk show titan's hoped-for weight loss--as in, the state will be shed of Blago's 180-extremely-odd pounds when he moves from governor to prisoner.

We can only hope that, like Sawyer, other national media types will have the sense to ask Blah-Blah the same tough questions that he's been ducking by local reporters for years.

Among them:

Do you know how to spell "narcissist"?

With a 13-percent approval rating before the feds charged you in December with, among other misdeeds, plotting to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, did you really think you had a shot at the U.S. Presidency in 2016?

How long have you been quoting Rudyard Kipling poems?

In any event, Blagojevich will eventually have to answer to criminal charges.

As I forecast when he was elected to a second term as governor, even then under a cloud of federal investigation, he very likely faces some significant time behind prison bars. If that comes to pass, he will follow in the shameful footsteps of his gubernatorial predecessor, the chronically corrupt George Ryan.

Can a Drew Peterson bid for governor be far behind?

ULI Summary: Niche Property Classes

Freezing temperatures and the Urban Land Institute: the two will be forever linked in my memory.

That's because last Thursday, very possibly the coldest day of my life (it was about 20 degrees below zero), I trekked to the Union League Club to cover a meeting of the Urban Land Institute's Chicago chapter.

The topic: "Niche Property Classes: Are they faring better than Primary Real Estate Asset Classes?"

For the fourth time in as many months, I learned a wealth of information. When my fingers thawed upon returing to my office, I wrote this summary for the ULI, which touches on some of the insights shared by development experts in the niches of parking garages, medical offices and college housing.

You can also read three prior summaries I've written for the Urban Land Institute's Chicago chapter, "Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2009®," "The Credit Crisis: How the Collapse of Credit Impacts the Economy and Commercial Real Estate," and "River North: Past Plans, Future Opportunities."

Presidency To Test Obama's PR Realism

President Barack Obama's inauguration today brings two other dates to mind:

Twenty years ago today, I was an intern at the Telegraph & News of Macon, Georgia, helping edit the front page that included news of George H.W. Bush's inauguration as president.

And 20 years before that, I was in diapers as Richard M. Nixon was sworn in as president.

Unlike Obama, both Nixon and Bush had relationships with the media that were strained, at best, and often disastrous.

I have nearly finished reading Stephen Ambrose's Nixon: Ruin and Recovery and among other truths, Ambrose shows that Nixon recognized the impact of public relations perception on his political viability.

At the same time, it's even more obvious that he terribly misgauged the magnitude of his actions on generating the worst kind of PR. He also had a fundamentally flawed view of the media's very nature. He tried to battle journalism's investigative, cynical, "gotcha" qualities instead of accepting those traits as fact and proceeding accordingly.

Of course, in the immediate aftermath of the June 1972 Watergate Hotel break-in, Nixon's options ranged from really, really bad (if he had 'fessed up immediately that his subordinates--though not Nixon himself--had ordered and orchestrated the botched Watergate break-in) to politically lethal (hide his subordinates' role and then hide his role in the cover-up, then conceal each successive half-truth, distortion or outright lie that followed in the tangled web).

As for the elder Bush—fittingly, as the Republican Party's National Chairman he was among those advising Nixon during the disintegration of Nixon's administration in 1973-74—his view of the media became remarkably unrealistic and embittered over time.

In 1997, four years after he left office, Bush 41 issued a ridiculously impossible “no media allowed” demand on a talk that he gave in Elgin, Ill., where I was a reporter at the time for The Courier News.

What brought him to town? He was the featured speaker at Money magazine’s “adoption” of the city to teach personal finance lessons. While the magazine was at it, maybe they should have added a PR lesson for Bush.

As his talk before thousands at Elgin High's gymnasium approached, reality set in, and Bush’s handlers had no choice but to “waive” the unenforceable media ban.

Obama, on the other hand, appears to have developed a clear-eyed view that he can influence, but not impose his will, on the media.

That realism will be put to the test as his honeymoon media-darling phase comes to a close in rapid fashion, and he begins bearing the inevitable brunt of criticism that confronts all Presidents.

This essay also appeared in the Marshfield (Ma.) Mariner, the publication where I began my journalism career 25 years ago.

Doors Open, Narrow On Healthcare PR

Healthcare is integral to our lives, and over the past few years it's developed into a significant portion of Inside Edge PR business, with more than a dozen health-and-wellness clients in my A to Z experience.

This afternoon, I had the intriguing, immaculately timed experience of fielding a call from one healthcare provider (who had spoken with me about six months ago) seeking help with marketing and PR strategy, even as another provider--a hot prospect only a few weeks ago--notified me via e-mail that the regretted to report they were cutting back on marketing/PR support.

One door opens wider, another door goes from wide open to ajar.

(I never view doors as being entirely closed, unless I simply would not want to work with a given individual or organization. Um, Emperor Blagojevich, that includes you.)

Keeping Your PR Eye On The Calendar

Of all the similarities between being a journalist and being a publicist, one of the most prominent ones is the need to keep your eye on the calendar.

Mine says that today is Jan. 16th, which means, among other things, that it's well past time to start thinking about Valentine's Day-related story ideas, whether you represent a client or toil in a newsroom.

I touched on this timing truth in an Inside Edge PR post two weeks ago.

On another front, if you don't have a Super Bowl-related pitch ready to roll, it's time to go into the two-minute drill. Yesterday, as I was speaking with Don Riley, the new fitness director at Five Seasons Sports Club in Burr Ridge, a thought popped into my head--how can we tie in his expertise with the big football game on February 1st?

The answer came quickly, and simply: offer simple fitness and nutrition tips that TV spectators (aka "couch potatoes") can implement as they "watch 22 players desperately in need of rest," as the late, great football coach Bud Wilkinson has been quoted.

More to come in a future Inside Edge PR post.

The Cyber-News Tension: A Story's Worth

I had to chuckle this morning when I came across a story online at The Wall Street Journal. It was about the Chicago Tribune’s announcement that next Monday it will soon be offering a tabloid edition (with the same content as its home-delivered version) for newsstand sales

Earlier, I had seen the story, by Phil Rosenthal, on the Trib’s front page (since I am one of the dinosaurs who still gets the print edition delivered to my home). But I had yet to follow the jump inside, distracted as I was by the Obama bobblehead doll reference that also graced Page 1.

So I figured I’d see what the esteemed WSJ had to share about the development.

The Wall Street Journal piece built up a head of steam, captured my interest and then….asked me to fork over some money (“to continue reading, subscribe now”) if I wanted to continue reading the third paragraph, let alone the rest of the story.

I moved on, my credit card safely tucked in my wallet. That moment underscored the tension that newspapers are waging in terms of traditional vs. online content delivery.

I didn’t want to subscribe to the Journal—I simply wanted to finish reading the story.

In a world where access to information is so rampant, what is the worth of any given shred of news? If a single copy of the Trib is 75 cents, how much monetary value can be assigned to a John Kass column --a few pennies, a nickel, eight cents?
Some day, maybe they will devise a system that zeroes in with such laser-like fashion. For now, anyway, I’ll just flip back to the Trib’s print edition and pick up Rosenthal’s story where it left off.

(A John Kass P.S.—mark my words, within six months he will be a household name in America, as the rest of the media world catches up with his no-hold-barred reporting on the “Chicago Way” and its intersection with President-elect Obama.)

Triblocal Gets Much More Local For Clientele

The other day, I posted a news release for the Illinois Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine on Triblocal.com.

You can see the release ("Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine: Not All Providers Are Created Equal") here. It joins dozens of other Inside Edge PR news releases (written, as all my work is written, in journalistic style) on the site.

Soon, many more Inside Edge PR releases will be on the site, as the Tribune expands its reach to include Oak Park, River Forest and Forest Park--right in the heart of so much of my client roster.

Though its focus on western and southern suburbs has typically been beyond most of my clientele's reach until now, Triblocal has been a solid go-to resource for nearly a year. The site is easy to use, has a broad reach and, of course, is connected to the top newspaper in the region.

Make no mistake--the site does not draw anywhere near the traffic that flocks to the flagship paper's site at Chicago Tribune.com.

But clients report receiving visits to their site from the Triblocal pages, and the pieces also frequently pop up on Page 1 of Google searches for various organizations, businesses and individuals that I've publicized. That all has a real, if difficult-to-measure, impact on a company or organization's bottom line.

One quick case in point: during the recent dog wedding in Oak Park that I promoted (I Do, Doggone It!), I asked a gentleman who trekked from Glen Ellyn to Oak Park how he learned of the event.

He first replied, "The Tribune." When I mentioned that I'd not seen it publicized there, he clarified that he meant Triblocal.com.

Rarely will I develop a news release with Triblocal in mind--it's simply one of many spots where I send or, in the user-generated website's case, post it. However, at bare minimum, tapping into the site provides an online home for stories that might otherwise not get published anywhere else.

In that regard, it becomes a kind of online adjunct to an organization's website and overall marketing effort.

PR Aimed At Local Newspapers: Alive & Well

In yet another piece of News That Isn't Really News comes a recent report from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Pew asked more than 1,000 folks where they got "most of" their national and international news. In 2008, the Internet eclipsed print newspapers as their primary news source.

You can see more detail here in a New York Times blog.

Local news, however, is a different beast. For one thing, local publications don't have a user-friendly (or even, in some cases, any) website. More significantly, however, local news is a much more intimate, day-to-day relevant resource than national and international news.

While the future of major newspapers is cloudy, I am most optimistic about the fortunes of local publications that do a solid job of covering their own communities. From a PR perspective, it is crucial to recognize how to tailor news releases and story suggestions with that specific smaller geographic focus in mind.

For example, if you have five people, from five different communities in the same metro region who have benefited from a given company's service, then the same type of story can be pitched to at least five (and sometimes even more) distinct publications.

Increasingly, this has been a most fruitful approach for our clients at Inside Edge PR. We regularly secure multiple "media hits," each one of which is targeted to an audience that is actually in a position to take action that benefits the client (for example, becoming a new patient of a given practitioner.)

Page 1 Ads Signal Tough Economic Times

About 12 years ago, while I was on the news staff at The Courier News in Elgin, Ill., the newspaper began placing advertisements on Page 1. For what felt like months on end, we hawked a chance to win a free Daewoo.

I didn't like it at all. The "journalism purist" in me feared we had crossed the line and, by doing so, had diminished our credibility. In short, I felt we had "sold out."

Today, as advertising is a commonplace sight on the front page and as I near the 10-year mark of self-employment, I have a more sympathetic take on things: my paper was simply trying to do what it could to make ends meet.

That's certainly the case with no less an institution than the New York Times, which recently began offering Page 1 ads for $75,000 a pop and even more on weekends, according to the New York Post.

Desperate economic times call for desperate measures.