I’ve always recognized the power of words. Perhaps it’s my literal nature, or my love of writing, but what people say or even more so, what they put to paper, has always had a tremendous impact on me.

I remember sitting in ‘pep rallies’ in high school, listening to motivational speakers talk about character and charity. I felt like I was the only one who ever heard or was affected by what they said. Books are no different. After reading ‘Atlas Shrugged’ foe the first time, I remember being speechless for hours, wanting to go jump off a cliff because it society felt so hopeless compared to Rand’s vision.

Words create nations, immortalize individuals, forever damage trust or injure others. I don’t think people realize how powerful they are. We are careless – often writers being the worst culprits.

Perhaps I’m wrong for ceaselessly analyzing people’s conversations, or taking people at their word. But it’s the only currency I understand.

Sticks and stones is a post from: Not so subtle...

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I love this phrase – it’s been thrown at me a lot in my lifetime.

I’ve never worked in corporate America, but I’m assuming in that environment, the mantra works. No one is emotionally attached to their work – it’s a job, a paycheck, or a line of work they excel in.

But that phrase doesn’t work for nonprofits.

In today’s economy, more nonprofits are modeling themselves after traditional businesses. You must to survive. More nonprofits are creating hybrid fundraising models, where part of the income comes from traditional donors and sponsors, where as the other is income from a business. It’s the future and honestly, it’s what nonprofits need.

Herein lies the problem. Nonprofits take in business strategies, but everything about the nonprofit world is personal. The staff, the volunteers and the publics they serve are all emotionally invested in the work. There’s no way to do business as usual without taking it personally.

Nonprofits base their marketing and fundraising on having a story. You won’t succeed unless you have a strong story that explains your mission. Inevitably, there will be some tugging on the heart strings – we’ve all come to expect that from NPOs.

But you can’t expect to rock the boat, piss people off, and be able to go about business as usual. Nonprofit work is gritty, and someone has to make the hard decisions – but they’re going to be harder than any in the business world because of the emotional investment.

It’s not personal, it’s business is a post from: Not so subtle...

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Running PR for Gangplank is the easiest job in the world. The events, the people, everything about Gangplank attracts interest and therefore my role is more passive than active.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a thing or two to learn about my new role.

When I was pursuing my masters degree at the Cronkite School, a common debate was whether we should be taught public relations or press relations. Doesn’t seem like a big difference to those outside the profession, but it is. Public relations is proactive. You pursue press, pitch ideas and create messaging. Press relations is the exact opposite – it is a reactive relationship. The press is pursuing you and you are trying to maintain messaging.

As you may be able to tell based on the title of this blog, I was trained in one and not the other.

Up to this point, I’ve been very hands-off with the press. I arrange interviews, make sure they’ve got the contacts they need and return to my to-do list for the day. While that approach is important to establish trust with the interviewer and interviewee, it can lead to false information, miscommunication or too much coverage for a single entity. As a PIO, it’s my job to wrangle, a trait I’m unfamiliar with. I need to direct press to the subjects of interest, as opposed to letting them determine what is interesting. Messaging needs to be consistent.

In other words, I need to be proactively reactive – both PR master and PIO goddess. Oh boy.

Learning to be a PIO is a post from: Not so subtle...

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I’m at the age where the majority of my friends are married or engaged. I’ve had my share of wedding planning over the last few years and no matter how different the brides…the story is always the same. They want a dream wedding that is then ruined by parents, relatives or an aggressive bridesmaid.

The key here is their vision versus the reality. Dream weddings are built up in the female mind from the first time we see Disney‘s ‘Cinderella’, but rarely do these dream scenarios take into account the many stakeholders, investors and audience members.

Oh yes, you read it right. I just boiled down the holy institution of marriage to a PR strategy.

Vision versus reality is incredibly important when planning an event – no matter if it’s a wedding, corporate conference or art opening. You must always under-promise and over-deliver.

Easiest way to accomplish this is to always work under the assumption you have no budget. You’ll be hard pressed to find a client that is willing to shell out what is necessary to have an awe-inspiring event. Instead, see what you can create on little to no money. If you can still plan for a decent event under those circumstances, then everything on top of that is gravy.

Always, ALWAYS, take into account every stakeholder. Your client may be spending the money, but the attendees are the ones whom will either hail or denounce your event to the public. Don’t forget the vendors either. The easier you are to work with when it comes to catering or decor, the more likely you are to get that discount you need to stay under budget.

Most importantly, be up front with your client. There is a reason marriages are staked in year-long engagements and lots of dates – a couple is trying to rectify a vision and the reality. You can avoid a rocky relationship and nasty split by being honest. If you know you can’t secure the venue or bring in the class of vendor, turn down the job. You’ll get there in time if you can make amazing things happen for the smaller fish.

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Lessons in event planning: Vision vs. Reality is a post from: Not so subtle...

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For weeks, I’ve been trying to put into words my experience working at Gangplank, but they seem to always escape me. Thankfully, someone else provided them for me.

Friday morning I was labeling desks, in order to move them more efficiently back Into place post-Desert Bloom Phoenix. As I walked around, one of Forty’s staff looked at me quite seriously and said, “You have the most random tasks to complete every day.”

There you have it…my job at Gangplank.

My role is fluid. I become whatever the organization requires – tour guide, den mother, hard-ass, ambassador and executor. I am helping build someone else’s vision, putting into action the endless ideas of our members.

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5 years ago, I left my family. I moved 1,700 miles away to begin my independent life and start my path to adulthood.

It was easy at first. Most of the time I would be so busy that it didn’t creep into daily life.

But minor events happen over time that cause the ache of homesickness. An incident at the hospital, for which I can only receive hurried phone call updates. Three Thanksgivings where I miss my mom’s mac and cheese. Skyping with the family while I watch them from across the country decorate the tree.

It’s hard. Humans need each other.

As the 20-something population becomes more spread out, we look to each other to fill that void. Sunday breakfasts, holiday parties and BBQ’s create new families…modern families. Individuals take on the roles your parents once held – caregiver, loudmouth, disciplinarian. You can probably name who fits those stereotypes in your friend group with ease.

So today, on Father’s Day, I feel sadness for the gift of wine I will not share with my Dad, or the family outing to see Toy Story 3 I will miss. But the huge brunch I’m currently enjoying makes up for the home sicknesses just enough.

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Last Saturday night, I had a bizarre dream. I lived in a world where everyone’s intellectual development platued at a certain point very early in their lives. In order to become more intelligent and move ahead, you had to die and come back to life.

There was a gassing system that would take you up via conveyor belt up into a small room. Gas would be pumped in, you would die, and then a short while later, the doctors would bring you back to life.

Your reanimated self would be smarter…better than the majority of the human race.

But there’s a catch.

You cannot have any relationships once you are brought back to life.

In my dream, I had been told that I would be undergoing the procedure. I did not choose to. As I lay in the room waiting for the gas to be pumped in, I started screaming and banging on the walls to get out. I had to tell everyone I loved that I couldn’t be with them anymore.

The next morning I woke up with the dream still vivid in my memory. I laughed it off…haha, silly over-imaginative mind.

But something about the dream has stuck with me this past week.

The more I listen to other’s stories and the more advice I’m given, it seems that parts of me really do have to die.

For a person to succeed, they have to let pieces of their personality, their old life, slip away to make way for the new and improved life. No one can make that journey with them and many will be left behind.

The dream is a metaphor for getting ahead in the world and the sacrifices one most make – relationships most of all.

Dreams and reality is a post from: Not so subtle...

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Though I went to journalism school, I know very little about the inner workings of an actual news company. I’ve never seen behind the curtain as to what goes into getting a newspaper printed or posted on a daily basis.

I know there are services like the Associated Press or Reuters that post articles that are then syndicated by papers/new sites all over the world. But until this Tuesday, I had no idea how that system actually worked.

A few weeks back, I had answered a HARO (Help A Reporter Out.com) query for individuals that were quitting their job to start a new one. Having just been hired by Gangplank, I figured what the hell. If I could get some publicity for the nonprofit, all the better.

Photo taken by Matt York

I received an email from AP reporter Chris Leonard asking if he could ask me some questions. After our discussion, I had the feeling my story didn’t fit and that he wasn’t going to use my quotes. Then, a week or so later, a photographer called asking if he could take some pictures for the story, which would run the following week.

So before I even started at Gangplank, I already had a photographer posing me in the building. Way to make a first impression.

I got a call from Chris on Monday, letting me know the story would run the next day.

Around 7am, I woke up, rolled over and checked my phone. 12 google alerts for my name. The AP story had been picked up by publications ranging from Yahoo! News UK to the San Francisco Chronicle.

But I was about to get schooled in the real workings of the journalism field.

At 10am, I get a call from Fox 10 news. They’re doing a story similar to the AP article and want to do a follow-up for the 5pm news. They need a source.

At 2pm, I get an email from an NPR reporter. They want to cover the story for ‘Marketplace’ and need a source.

I had no idea how much news teams rely on other articles to pull sources. This is why a service like HARO is so invaluable to not only reporters, but to those looking to get themselves or their business/cause out there. Sources are just hard to find.

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The fantastic thing about being a history nerd is how often I notice when it repeats itself.

Take for example, prohibition and the current marijuana problem.

Alcohol has been a problem with this country since day one. We are a nation founded by morally conservative (yet horribly hypocritical) leaders. For hundred of years the nation managed to turn it’s head on alcohol use and abuse, as it was needed to survive conquering the West and cope with blasting our way though nature.

But in the 1920′s, America was civilized. Cities were built, industry was booming – consuming alcohol became social. The temperance movement gained momentum and prohibition was born. Written into our Constitution (yes, the same Constitution that freed the slaves and birthed a nation), it became illegal to drink.

And what came of it? The most notorious gangsters of our time, like Al Capone.

But even the bloodshed and increased crime rates seen during prohibition weren’t enough to repeal the act.

What did you ask?

The Great Depression. America needed money, so in 1933, alcohol was put back on the market.

So you can imagine my delight when I read online recently that California is putting a measure on the November ballot to legalize the sale and possession of marijuana.

“Taxing marijuana sales could help bail out the cash-strapped state.”

Let’s look at the marijuana statistics:

• 1,211 metric tons seized in 2001 (nearly 2.5 million pounds or 50 semi-trailers)
• $1 trillion in costs over 40 years

You only have to look back less than a century to see our success with legislating morality.

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Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been enthralled by history for as far back as I can remember. I teared up at Antietam battlefield, sat in the middle of Ellis Island and felt the weight of history. I’ve even participated as a Civil War reenactor.  Friends and family have been annoyed with me at times for saying sometimes I wish I was from a different era.

This long weekend provided the opportunity to watch the History Channel series, “America: The Story of Us”. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly encourage you to rent or download a copy.

Diverting from the typical cheesy History Channel reenactments and slideshow photography, the series seeks to capture the raw quality of our growth as a nation. The overarching message is hard work, sacrifice and the difference one man/woman can make. The graphics are gritty and occasionally horrific – watch out for the amputation dialogue during the Civil War episode.

In all the historical documentaries I’ve viewed over the years – and there have been many – this one takes the cake. It both makes me proud that I’ve descended from a collection of “old coots and tough broads”, as well as makes be ashamed of some of the steps our leaders took to get there.

The American dream has been embedded in our cultural psyche since our very first history class and the lesson of the American Revolution. It continues with manifest destiny, the secession of the South, the Industrial Revolution and World War I. We understand at a very young age that making something of yourself means breaking the rules, defying the odds and often times, lots of suffering.

Modern entrepreneurship, while still representative of the American dream, is far removed from that of our fore fathers. Going off on your own doesn’t demand the same sacrifices it did 100 years ago. We have the blood and sweat of ancestors to thank for that.

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