image via nndb.com

You can find a treasure trove of blog posts about creating a healthy corporate culture. They all make it sound so easy. Most of these snack sized bites of wisdom cite Google or Zappos as paragons of virtue. Too bad we can’t all be Tony Hsieh.

I’ve had the pleasure of working for a variety of screwed up organizations. After deep reflection, I’ve come up with hallmarks of less than healthy corporate cultures. Ask yourself, ‘Is this our company?’

1. Your cafeteria staff recently opened an illicit tuck shop that sells employees Xanax and Qualudes.
2. Because of a robust amount of workplace violence, you’ve been forced to spend last quarter’s profits on a metal detector.
3. Your clients always request off site meetings because they’re scared shitless of your offices.
4. You’ve recently hired the ghost of Ken Lay as a consultant.
5. Employees mistrust your HR department enough to have dubbed them “the Stasi.”
6. You think “turnover” is something grandma bakes on weekends.
7. Your CEO is friends with more tin pot dictators than you can count on one hand.

Anything to add?

image via fullpricenever.com

In recent months, I’ve spent a lot of time working with bloggers on contests and giveaways.

Some have been great successes, others miserable failures. Mostly via the failures, I’ve learned a thing or two.

In the interest of sharing these learnings, here are 6 important questions you should ask before running a contest or giveaway with a blogger:

1. What’s the goal? Simple enough. However, it’s from whence all flows. Do you want exposure, web traffic, to build following on a social media platform, or something else?
2. Why this blogger? It may be that you want to cozy up to someone because of the sheer size of their audience. There are other valid reasons, too. Perhaps a blogger has a small(ish) audience but is highly influential with her readers. Perhaps she publishes content on several media properties, and a contest on her blog is the first step to scoring coverage in those other outlets. Whatever you do, make sure the “why” is clearly laid out.
3. How do people enter the contest, and how does the entry mechanism serve YOUR goal? The method of entry is perhaps the most important (and easiest to screw up) part of running a giveaway with a blogger. If you want web traffic, ask a question whose answer is only found on your web site, thereby forcing entrants to go there to find it. If it’s Facebook likes you seek, make sure the blogger clearly states this and links to your brand page.
4. Are there ways people can get extra entries? Most bloggers will build some kind of extra entry mechanism into contests. This can range from following the sponsor on additional social media platforms, to signing up for an e-newsletter, to answering specific trivia questions. You get the point. Extra entry mechanisms are a great way to generate more value out of the exercise. Ask about them.
5. How is the blogger tracking entries? There are a number of popular contest management apps out there. The tool the blogger uses is less important than the fact that they have a system in place. Make sure he/she does, so that you don’t end up looking bad.
6. Who sends the winner the prize? Most bloggers will let the contest sponsor send the prize(s) directly to the winner. This is the only way to fly. Cut out intermediaries who slow things down and can damage your rep.

You probably have things to add. Please do.

image via involuntaryfury.com

Keith Trivitt, from the PRSA, wants to kill “hits.” He claims referring to media placements in this manner destroys the profession’s rep.

This strikes me as kinda prim and mostly pointless.

Though I’ve often referred to it, I’m real tired of the profession’s preoccupation with our collective “reputation.” Face it, there are unethical jackasses in every realm, and perhaps it’s time to focus our energy on other questions.

Trivitt’s piece got me thinking about when valid preoccupations/debates become counter productive.

Don’t get me wrong, internal dialogue is critical for all professions. But there comes a point when an issue is beaten so far to death that it becomes a collective neurosis.

Here are a few other never-ending topics in PR that might be passed their best before date in terms of value and productivity.

1. The value of “Add Value Equivalency (AVE).” PR peeps ain’t admen. The way people react to an ad versus an editorial piece differs. This should be enough to kill AVEs. If C-suiters ask about AVEs, EDUCATE them.
2. Who owns social media. The answer is “it depends” (i.e. there is no one answer). In fact, there’s not even a sound, readily applicable, cookie cutter framework for figuring this out.
3. The definition of PR. My mom and wife are not exactly sure what I do for a living. They certainly cannot explain it succinctly to their friends. In this, I am not alone amongst my fellow PR pros. While it’s laudable to try and bang out a definition of PR, every time an industry body does we end up looking like master obfuscators. PR pros do many different things, and there is no monolithic job description because of the flux the industry is in. Maybe that’s enough.

Thoughts? Am I too much of a curmudgeon on this?

DJ Sonny Fodera knows a bunch about how his content's consumers like it served up (image via theonion.com.au)

Content is where so much begins these days.

The tough part is, as communicators, we’ve been thrown headlong into planning, creating and disseminating it for our employers, clients and other stakeholders. Let’s face it, our record as content marketers is mixed at best.

It’s understandable. Though it doesn’t always feel like it, in the grand scheme, the profound transformation of Corporate Comms to a centre of content creation is still relatively recent, and is made more difficult by incessant hype around whatever the platform du jour happens to be.

Bring it back to basics. The bottom line is that your content’s consumers (and prospective consumers) wish you knew a few simple things:

1. Their preferred media for receiving YOUR content. Just because people like video from her, or audio from him, doesn’t mean they won’t LOVE reading words on a screen from you. Measurement is thus the ticket to success.
2. They like games. Smart parents have long understood the power of gamifying life’s more mundane moments to get their children to take certain actions. Though marketers grasped this awhile ago too, “gamification” has become the hot word in content marketing today. Confused? Check this post by Joe Pulizzi for some examples.
3. That voice matters.The importance of voice in content cannot be overstated. Here’s the rub: effective content marketing necessitates you (the firm) giving a little on voice. Yes, you determine voice, brand persona, etc. But if it ain’t what “they” want, what’s the point?
4. That your habit of automatically pumping the same piece of content across every platform annoys them. Forget, for a minute, that Twitter, Linkedin and Pinterest have different user bases, interfaces, strengths and weaknesses. The fact is, we humans have divergent needs and wants from platforms, and behave differently on them.  This is content marketing 101, but still firms screw it up! Why?
5. How much they can take. It’s great for Seth Godin to blog every day. In all likelihood, you don’t need to. The hoopla around content creation has engendered pressure to feed the beast. We are all media today, and must indeed regularly produce content, but there’s such a thing as too much. Play around with various frequencies of content sharing and creation and see what works.
6. In terms of publishing, predictable schedules matter. This one is easy to grasp. While you need to be varied in terms of what you create, the frequency and schedule of publishing should not be.
7. That they ‘ll reward you for being a valuable source at the top of the funnel. Everybody talks about how firms need to “talk less about themselves,” or “be less salesy with their content.” These propositions remain somewhat counter intuitive for most companies, who rightly understand that the point is to sell stuff! Still, though the process of tracking a sale is often an inexact science, there’s ample evidence to suggest that being a reliable voice about an industry/vertical pays lots of dividends. Getting there means that you have to be ready to share other people’s work, find the right balance of stock and flow,  and talk about macro factors bigger than your organization.

I am sure you have points to add. Please do so in the comments.

I’m speaking at a teleconference for the Run, Walk, Ride Council on Thursday. I’ll be chatting about how to get media to cover charity runs, walks and/or rides.

Challenges abound with ‘thon PR. There are a lot of events, all for good causes and (at least in Narnia, where I live) they tend to occur in a fairly condensed season. Then there’s resources. Traditional  media outlets have fewer available to cover soft stories, and bloggers – even big ones – tend to be armies of one.

That said, there are a few really basic things that will help you score media coverage for your ‘thon:

1. Develop a typology of media relevant participants and share it between PR and front line staff. Run, walks and rides are about people. Individual participant stories humanize the event and add an angle to media pitches. You need to know who’s participating in your event if you’re going to harvest the best stories. Get your PR person or department to build a list of “ideal participants archetypes” and make sure they share it with front line staff. From there, communicate often.
2. Package out your best participant stories to target media as exclusives. Old school, I know. But media don’t want to cover the same thing – even if it is a feel good story about your charity’s Fun Run. Give the most coveted media outlets exclusives on your best participant stories and they’ll LOVE you. Why? Because, though the story will still be about your ‘thon, you’ll have made outlets feel as though they are each getting something special.
3. Get visual. You now know that photos and video – not text – are the lingua franca of the web. Pinterest’s user base is growing faster than crack’s did in the mid 80′s. Everyone, including the journos you want to cover your event, loves pics. Before your ‘thons conduct an internal audit of your capacity to produce rich, visual media. Fill in the gaps and be ready to deploy it on event. If press releases for a ‘thon go out without photos and video, you are doing it wrong.

There’s lots more to say on this. For now, here’s the deck I am presenting tomorrow.

Sara Macintyre, Communications Director for BC Premier Christy Clark, is now more famous than her boss in large tracts of Canada.

Macintyre’s heated exchange with the BC provincial press (if you haven’t seen it, click here for the clip) has led most major outlets in BC to run stories excoriating her, and has produced a number of scathing national media hits. One outraged journo dubbed her “Canada’s Newest TV Villain” – a bit much.

It goes further. Perfectly on cue, a legion of Public Relations experts and media trainers have emerged to comment on Macintyre’s folly. Writing in PR Daily, Brad Phillips ripped her for everything from “forgetting who her audience was,” to “chewing gum.”

While it’s hard to countenance Macintyre’s actions, there are interesting macro lessons at play in this and other episodes like it.

First, in recent years, prominent right-wing politicians from George W. Bush to Stephen Harper have treated media with utter contempt and given them very limited access. While there is no doubt this has bred serious acrimony with the fourth estate, in no discernible way has it had any impact on the bottom line of either politician. Bush, though broadly panned for his controlled approach to media relations, was a two term President (i.e. – in this era he had a successful electoral career). Harper negotiated minority Parliaments for over five years and then won a majority – hardly a small achievement.

In politics today, it seems that you can treat media like dogs and win. That was not, I’d wager, as true in the past.

From a media relations perspective, people like Sara Macintyre have made a very particular calculation: the political media needs access to leaders more than leaders need the press.

Politics is one of the only realms of PR where this notion holds with any strength.

If I told people who cover consumer technology that my tech clients were “not taking questions today,” the journalists would laugh (or worse) and go cover any of the two hundred other companies vying for their attention. In this dynamic, I and my clients need the media as much, or more, as the media needs us, ergo we have to make like adults, not angry, petulant children. The situation is true the vast majority of the time a PR pro and a journalist deal with each other.

I’m not recommending that my fellow PR practitioners – whether in politics or other realms – behave in gratuitously provocative ways like my former colleague did (Macintyre and I worked together in Harper’s Office in the early 2000′s). No doubt, she has broken a cardinal rule about “the story being about her, not her boss.”

However, rather than jump on the bandwagon of hacks and PR experts attacking Sara Macintyre, we should understand that her actions are rooted in a logic about political media relations that is supported by some evidence over the last decade.

Look closer at this. Maybe the media are just being human and reacting to rude treatment. Maybe, as Macintyre, Bush and Harper might argue, they’re angry about the painful truth that they matter less than ever. As for the PR experts, maybe they’re just excited by the chance to flex their bona fides.

In the end, there is little to suggest Christy Clark (or her electoral bottom line) is going to suffer.

You might already have mad skills.

But in our ever changing game one can always improve, right?

In the interest of continuous improvement, here are 7 things you can do right now to become a better PR pro:

1. Read some Charles Bukowski. Rather than wasting more time with yet another fluffy social media book, pick up some Buk and observe how a master puts words together. Short, sweet, and devoid of any excess, just like you’re supposed to produce. If Bukowski is too raw for you, grab some other fiction (Hemingway?). There’s plenty of evidence to suggest it helps a career.
2. Register for a course on analyzing financial statements. You’re in business, so you should know how to read and interpret financials. If you cannot do this you will either : a) get screwed by an accountant someday b) lose a bunch of money via a terrible investment c) get in trouble with a government for filing bad taxes, or d) never get to the C-suite/run a successful enterprise of your own.
3. Go to a newsroom. You’d be surprised how many PR people have never been to a newsroom. It’s so important to see how media live. You have contacts I’m sure. Ask ‘em if you can pay their workplace a visit.
4. Find one or two new blogs, with different perspectives, and add them to your reader. In our game there are a tonne of folks producing great blog content. Find a few new ones and you’ll probably learn new things.
5. Make use of podcasts. No, podcasting is NOT dead! They’re a great way to learn on the fly and stay current.
6. Improve your ability to produce visual content by reading, studying or doing. Pics and video are where it’s at on the web. You’re a much better pro if you understand how to create, deploy and curate visual media.
7. Read some mythology. I’m a big fan of mythology, especially the Greek variety. The stories are well crafted, and life lessons driven home. In this business, we’re all storytellers who can benefit from reading masterfully woven tales.

You must have stuff to add. Love to hear from you.

The buzz around Pinterest is something to behold.

We’ve all heard about the power of the site for retailers, women’s magazines, and why, demographically, it’s a marketer’s dream.

What is less said, and why I think the Pinterest people are really onto something, is the power of expression it conveys to the masses.

Follow me for a sec.

The well crafted written word is immensely powerful and will likely remain so. Same thing for speech well spoken. However, so few people are good at writing and speaking. Pinterest taps into the desire we all have to tell the world about ourselves; to express who we are and what we love. However, it does this in a totally accessible, democratic sort of way. On Pinterest, you don’t need to be a good writer, and fears about being able to put spoken words together in a manner that sounds nice are gone. You get to tell people about you in a succinct, hard hitting way that is unlikely to conjure up insecurities about your intellect or breed criticism from others. This is genius. That the site’s interface is brilliant and tends to make things look lovely is a bonus (though not a small one).

I’m impressed. Are you?

Pictures are all the rage these days.

It makes perfect sense. On the internet, we have very short attention spans. Moreover, as a species, we seem hardwired to love pretty things.

Are we really that surprised by the rise of Pinterest, Instagram, etc?

In PR, we’ve always stressed the written word as a baseline tool. I doubt that will ever change. However, more than ever, I think young people coming up in the field should take time to learn about photography. It will give you an edge.

Here are a few things that might help you become a better than novice photographer and get a leg up on the competition for that internship or first job:

1. Expose yourself to the masters. If Edward Burtynsky has an exhibit in your town, go. If you’re not that lucky, buy some books from your favourite professional photog. Whether it is someone who shoots portraits, landscapes or models matters less. Checking out how the pros manage composition, lighting and other variables is going to help you.
2. Buy a decent camera and play around with it. If you don’t already have one, go shopping. You’ll need a camera for your clients, organization etc. It has long been a part of the PR toolkit, but is now even more important. View your new toy as an investment.
3. Take a photography course as an elective in school if you can. Simple. If your course load allows for taking a class or two, make like Nike and just do it. As wiser men than I have suggested, this may be the year that photography becomes the lingua franca  of the web. 
4. Play up your photography skills when applying for internships, that first job, etc. My sense is that many experienced pros – even those in their 30s – will view newbies with real photography skills differently. Many of us lack in this area and are thinking hard about how we can service clients who are fixated on services like Pinterest.
5. Build a portfolio and be ready to show it in an interview. Again, the hype around pictures and photo sharing is SO overwhelming right now. By bringing this content to an interview, showing that you’re adept at producing it and subtly demonstrating your understanding of the zeitgeist, you’ll be considered valuable and “on trend.”

There are probably tonnes of things I have missed here. Please add them in the comments.

The social media world is pretty convinced there’s nothing quite like Pinterest.

I’ve only recently started messing around with the site, so I can’t say for sure.

It has, however, occurred to me that Pinterest has a lot in common with bacon.

Here are 5 similarities:

• Seeing leads to action. Put a strip of dope, high end bacon in front of my eyes and I start to look for some to eat. Apparently seeing pretty things on Pinterest makes people act, though in this case they tend to click links.
• Too much can fatten your ass. Obvious, right? Gobble too much bacon and your posterior may soon have its own zip code. Sit on your butt pinning too many images, and the same thing can happen. Moderation is the key, mes amis!
• Ease of integration. Bacon is easily integrated into many dishes. From carbonara pasta, to caesar salad to the humble peanut butter and bacon sandwich, it’s a salty, delicious accent. Pinterest, too, seems to be easily integrated into various companies’ social media efforts because we are inherently visual beings. The service’s interoperability with Facebook is further testament to this.
• Early hype. True, you and I weren’t around when wise humans decided to slaughter pigs, cure the meat and “make it bacon.” However, I am sure a bunch of those early bacon adopters said, “WOW, this is some really good shit!” Word inevitably spread quickly about the pure ecstasy that is cured pig. Likewise, Pinterest has created so many early evangelists that the resulting hype borders on overwhelming.
• ROI?? Hey, you may love bacon. Perhaps pinning is winning in your world. However, for now, the exact ROI of eating bacon or using Pinterest is kinda hard to measure with real precision. Think about it.

Similarities aside, we know this: bacon has stood the test of time.

Do you think Pinterest will as well?