Mark Twain On Public Opinion

“Held In Reverence … Settles Everything

Some Think It Is The Voice Of God.”

Mark Twain On Public Opinion

“Held In Reverence … Settles Everything … Some Think

        It Is The Voice Of God.”

Wisdom of the Ages …

From Theodore Roosevelt & his thoughts on the “Man in the Arena”

“It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” 

“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Break The Small-Cage Habit

The St. Louis Zoo was one of the first zoos to take animals out of cages and put them in big pits. We started with the bears. A visitor to the zoo saw a big polar bear in the pit pacing forward about twenty feet swinging its long white neck in beautiful rhythm as it paced, then backing up about twenty feet still swinging its long white neck in rhythm — then pacing forward again for twenty feet and back again.

The visitor asked the keeper, “Why does the animal pace forward and backward like that when it has this great big area to run around in?” The keeper replied “The animal was born and raised in captivity in a small cage like that one over there and that’s the way it got its exercise.”

They moved the bear into a big pit with lots of room to run around but what did it do? It continued to get its exercise by pacing twenty feet forward and twenty feet back.

I use this as a springboard to point out the tremendous world of ideas all around us and what we do about it — Small Cage Habit Thinking!

What have you done differently lately?

As Told By W.H. Higginbotham

Guidance For Aspiring Public Relations Pros…Because Graduation & Jobs Are Coming

 FIRST, LAST & ALWAYS  –  Your Writing Is Super-Critical

1. Tell The Truth
2. Know & Follow Changing Ethical Standards & Practices
3. Check The “Quality” & “Time” Standards & Expectations For Each Situation
4. Track Trends – Demographic, Social, Business, Political, Fashion, Music, Etc.
5. Always Listen In Every Way – “Ya Ain’t Lernin Nuthin When You’re Talkin.”
6. Think & Act “Team” – Two Heads ARE Better Than One
7. Think “Fact” & “Fun”
8. Body Language Is Critical:
9. Break The Small Cage Habit – Ask Us For Details

Tips For Crafting A Stronger Story

We’re often asked to comment on a person’s or a company’s “story,” but more often than not, we’re actually being asked to help make that story stronger, more memorable and more effective.

Here are eight tips which, taken together, often can help you create that stronger story we all seek.

1) Think FACTS as well as FUN.

2) Tell the truth.

3) Be direct and brief.

4) Keep details simple.

5) Stick to one message for each story.

6) Avoid third-person pronouns.

7) Double-up on active, punchy verbs.

8) Start and finish with WII-FM.

 

5 Steps To Better, Quicker Written Communications

1. Use an illustration or a photo.
2. Run your ‘PronounCheck’ and reduce or eliminate third-person pronouns.
3. Keep paragraphs brief – one sentence many times is a good length.
4. Consider deleting the first paragraph.
5. Separate “researching” from “writing” from “editing” and allow time between each of these building blocks.

Paric Completes $80 Million Restoration of St. Louis’ Peabody Opera House

After languishing for 20 years, one of the Midwest’s finest performance venues has re-opened and is receiving rave reviews because of the expert and careful restoration and renovation by St. Louis-based Paric.
The Peabody Opera House, known in its earlier life as St. Louis’ Kiel Auditorium, opened originally in 1934. Two generations later, public expectations of a great performance venue have changed; Paric has brought the beautiful, stately structure up to date.
The challenge was both to maintain amazing acoustics in an elegant auditorium seating 3,500, while also adding quiet air conditioning, modern fire protection, washroom facilities, kitchen and dining facilities and all the space and technical needs required by today’s touring Broadway productions.
Smaller, open auditoriums adjoining each side of the main room and seating up to 700 each required special touches and just as much care. Still additional large venues above and below the main auditorium were restored for special uses.
Paric began the complex, two-year construction project with months of research into the details of the structure and the original furnishings — detailed research that included sending samples of the original paint to a lab to determine the very specific, original colors.
Paric’s careful research was matched by management’s careful and deliberate approach to the empty, nearly forgotten building which had been modeled on the great opera houses of Europe. Detailed planning, regular face-to-face conferences with sub-contractors and consultants, plus a hands-on approach from management resulted in a successful project, delivered on-time and on-budget. Talented craftspeople from throughout the St. Louis region were recruited to lend their expertise and special finishing touches.
The Peabody Opera House is attracting new and different performances, once again adding top-flight experiences to the memory banks and to the quality of life for millions of Midwesterners.
Paric, one of the largest St. Louis-based companies, pairs design/build services with construction management and negotiated general construction to offer its “next level” experience. Organized in 1979, Paric specializes in historic renovations, senior living, industrial and institutional facilities, office interiors and the construction of healthcare facilities, commercial buildings and environmental systems. More information about Paric is available at http://www.paric.com.

3 Easy Steps For Better Communications In These Difficult Economic Times

Change changes everything. With the continuing strained economy and all the tough news for workers of fewer jobs and less spending by industry, knowing what to say and how to say it is more important than ever.

The one thing we can count on? With all change comes some level of fear.

For those in the business of managing or communicating — and let’s face it, to some degree each of us must communicate with others — understanding this over-riding sense of fear could make all the difference when we attempt to convince our audience to take the steps we ask.

Shifting Audiences

Fear is a catalyst of change in and of itself. In better times, our primary audience is likely customers or clients. In these tight times, however, our primary audience almost certainly has expanded exponentially to include employees and co-workers (worried about their livelihood), investors (worried about the bottom line) and vendors (worried about their bottom line).

A fearful audience is on the defensive – with a real willingness, even a need, to get information from as many sources as possible, including sources they know are often less-than-credible, but easily accessible. A fearful audience also is more eager than ever to find that “silver lining,” and they look to us to help find that good news.

Keeping an Eye on Social Media – The “Truth Squad”

Ask managers what fuels the current level of fear among workers, and many will tell you it’s social media. While many embrace social media as the brave new frontier for disseminating information quickly and efficiently, it’s also an undiscovered and equal-opportunity outlet, easily accessible even to those with faulty information.

Our audience’s job, as always, is to separate the kernels of truth from the chaff of rumor. But in times of fear, the kernels become more difficult to find and the chaff becomes thicker and tougher to blow away.

To help our audience succeed, managers and communicators must embrace the need to keep a vigilant watch 24-7.

Now more than ever, monitoring the buzz — in this case the seemingly endless cyberflow of information — for messages that are either misleading or downright untrue is crucial. Our “Truth Squad” must be alert and ready to act, for responsiveness is key. Managers and communicators must identify and counter information that is misleading or downright false.

So What Now?

To maximize the effectiveness of communication in a climate of fear we recommend three direct steps: 

1. Be Honest. In this time of economic change and broad social media influences, the message must be more targeted than ever. The most important – and perhaps obvious – element is what our mothers always told us – be honest, tell the truth. And speaking of truth, here’s one — if we don’t deliver the whole truth, someone else will.

2. Be Personal. Fear both drives the type of message required in a time of heightened fear and also impacts how that message is received. A personal delivery – we’re talking senior managers or decision makers, and particularly when we’re dealing with direct stakeholders – will go a long way in creating a more receptive audience.

3. Be Responsive. Respond quickly to negative outside reports and just as quickly to both internal and external concerns. Business generally is embracing more of a “multilogue” than the monologue or dialogue of the past. People want answers, and they also want to be heard. Actively doing both will quell fears faster than any detailed “program” ever could accomplish.

In these complex and difficult economic times, managers and communicators often will achieve among their best results by following three simple steps – being honest; being personal; being responsive.

* * * * 

Ron O’Connor, APR, has managed a range of business communications teams in support of a variety of goals. These teams have been rewarded with 85 international and national awards for communications excellence, awards he believes recognized programs that were focused on telling the truth, on being personal and on being responsive.

The ‘New’ Toolkit: A Business’s New Best Friend In These Tight Times

Times are tough, which means it’s more important now than ever to rise above the crowded marketplace and actively communicate your strengths to your audiences.

Of course the irony is this — it’s precisely when times are tough that you simply may not have the means to engage the pros for long-term marketing or public relations planning and execution, no matter how much you might need it.

Enter:  The Communications Toolkit.

While toolkits have been around for eons in one form or another (and many haven’t been updated — we found one online recently that gave tips on how to properly store the VHS tapes on which you’ve recorded your TV spot), we’re seeing more and more evidence that a toolkit — the modern, digital and multi-media 2.1 version — can be a creative and affordable middle ground (between doing nothing and doing it BIG, natch).

What’s in a toolkit? Critical elements might include:

• Printable collateral such as posters, postal size cards, flyers and factsheets
• Sample news releases
• Sample media pitches
• Social media tools
• Newsletter and e-newsletter templates
• Standard advertisements for print and other media

 Toolkit 2.1 — The upside:

• Mix and match flexibility
• Consistent messaging
• Control of delivery

Toolkit 2.1 — The downside:

• For the toolkit to work, you must plan for time invested internally to utilize the tools.

Where do you get a toolkit developed specifically for your budget, your business and your goals?

That’s where a good communications firm comes in. We might just know of one.