By Matt Burrows, Senior Account Executive At first glance, dentistry might seem like the last profession you should address to get thoughts on storytelling, with most conversations with your dentist consisting of them asking questions while your mouth is open to the world. So when Dan Tynan — journalist, communications writer and Thought Follower …more
By Elisa Zallio, Junior Account Executive, Hoffman Europe (London) I’d like to tell you about Emilio Salgari. He is a barely known, Italian writer from the late 19th century; he wrote adventure stories for periodic magazines, usually about fallen noblemen turned pirates to take revenge on their enemies — and, obviously, they’d fall in …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
The public relations function typically constructs media pitches based on the story that the company wants to tell. These stories tend to be pristine narratives — the sun is shining; birds are chirping — that dull the senses. That largely explains why 95%+ of pitches to the business media fail. Instead, we should be thinking …more
Writing feeds my soul, so producing 1,000 blog posts on public relations, storytelling and everything in between hasn’t exactly been combat duty. Still, there’s something about a round number with three zeroes that causes one to pause, to consider what went into this corporate blogging journey. Even though the destination was unknown, my anxiety was …more
Journalists get anecdotes. PR not so much. A few years back, we analyzed three months’ worth of tech stories in The Economist breaking down the content type by category. It turned out that 17 percent of the articles were anecdotal. . We consistently find that the anecdotal content in business publications ranges from 15 to …more
Our younger son gets married on Saturday. At a time when everyone looks ahead, I decided to also look backward to the marriage of Marv and Ruth Hoffman. The photo above shows my parents on their wedding day flanked by their moms. Their story is a common one for their generation — their parents arriving …more
I recognize that I live in this bubble called Silicon Valley where the promise of a better juicer can attract $120 million in venture capital, fail and everyone thinks this is normal. $120,000,000. Is it just me or does that seem like a lot of money down the drain? Of course, there are many Silicon …more
I suspect the recent Presidential election made for some spirited discussions around the Thanksgiving table this year. Even a slice of pie worthy of Twin Peaks — “This must be where pies go when they die” — can only go so far in bridging the political gap. Still, there’s something reaffirming in knowing that Thanksgiving …more
