Our 2019 mantra “The story is always there” points to the importance of the discovery process in business communications. Anyone can sit down with Apple’s Tim Cook after Elizabeth Warren has made her case for greater regulation of the tech industry and come away with a story that triggers clicks. It takes much …more
You periodically hear that someone is “good TV.” Bill Hader is good TV (looking forward to binging “Barry” on my next overseas flight). Tina Fey is good TV. Sometimes an event or a product like an Apple iPhone launch is mentioned as good TV. Semiconductors are NOT good TV. The technical nature of a semiconductor …more
Reporting on the storylines in a given Game of Thrones episode doesn’t require much creativity. Littlefinger overplays his hand and gets his due Daenerys Targaryen impersonates Abe Lincoln and frees the slaves The White Walkers were this close to taking over when the Night King makes a tactical error. Instead, the real storytelling comes through …more
A zillion college graduates are about to descend on civilization with shiny apples in hand. My daughter Grace is among the throng though I suspect she’ll take a pass on the apple (always the rebel). Regardless, the demand versus supply equation doesn’t work in the graduate’s favor. Finding that elusive first job puts a premium …more
Here’s my second grab bag post of 2018, capturing vignettes that caught my attention, but don’t lend themselves to stand-alone posts. Broken Links, an Opportunity Most companies treat broken links as a functional challenge. The person has clicked to a wrong place (page doesn’t exist), bringing a 404 page to navigate the person back …more
I’ve written 1,009 posts including this one. I don’t know if my Mom has read all of them — suspect she took a pass on my tirade about the city of Middleton’s proclamation of “Mustard Day” — but she’s been an avid reader of the blog. She claims that the blog is an extension of …more
While the communications world increasingly tilts toward digital, there are opportunities to play the contrarian card with an analog tactic. Executed right, the payoff can generate more than your fair share of attention. That’s what SHETRANSFORMS.US strove for last week. As background, SHETRANSFORMS.US advocates for taking the gender bias out of online search. The organization …more
This headline from Bloomberg showed up in my Twitter feed yesterday (h/t Dorothy Crenshaw): “Public Relations Jobs Boom as Buffett Sees Newspapers Dying” Let’s start with the headline, which is technically accurate. The PR industry is healthy, and newspapers aren’t. Yet, throwing in Warren Buffett’s name as click bait makes it sound like Buffett is …more
