Archive: June 2014

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U.S. Soccer Federation Shows Sense of Humor

I often refer to levity as the killer app in business communications. Why do so few organizations go this route? It takes guts as much as creativity to insert levity into an organization’s storytelling. As a great philosopher once put it, “One man’s levity is another man’s trash.” Zappos showed guts bringing levity to its …more

Trek to Asia Explores the Fun in Language

Traveling to Asia and working out of our offices — Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong, back to Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo — never gets old. Even after 50+ trips to the region, I still come across life-is-better-than-fiction moments in regard to language. Here are the top three from my latest trip. Marketing is Alive and …more

Finally, a “Test” To Guide the Actions and Storytelling Behind a News Release

The Internet has commoditized the news release. Unfortunately, many companies missed the memo. As noted in a previous post, the three largest news release distribution services (PR Newswire, Business Wire and Marketwired) sent out roughly 642,000 news releases in 2013 or 1,759 news releases per day. Figuring 10 man hours per news release at $175 …more

What the Hell Does the PR Guy Know About Journalism (Take II)?

Apparently, the five posts on our journalistic brothers last March didn’t deliver enough to data answer this question. In an attempt to tilt the scale in my favor, I’ve curated another round of posts scrutinizing the world of journalism with the caveat that some stones have been left unturned. Clues Reveal How Mr. Bezos Will …more

Google’s Diversity Announcement Reflects Cutting-edge Communications

There is so much “baloney” – pick your noun – in corporate communications that honest talk can serve as a brand-building exercise. That’s what we saw from Google last week when it publicly shared the diversity numbers behind its workforce in a blog post that starts: We’ve always been reluctant to publish numbers about the …more