May 20th, 2013
The ability to run a meeting, in person, via telephone, teleconference, Skype, or Google Hangout is a skill to which many are called but few are chosen. And that leaves the rest of us contemplating pulling the fire alarm or feigning a heart attack. Or both.
How many meetings have you sat through that meandered so far afield from the topic at hand, you wondered if you were in the wrong room or had mixed up the conference code? This kind of meeting is rarely productive and usually breeds resentment and frustration, not to mention confusion. After all, the purpose of a meeting is to move a project forward, not foment mutiny.
Meetings don’t have to be excruciating. They are a necessary component of doing business—any kind of business—but they don’t have to be a necessary evil. These people are your colleagues and collaborators (or clients). Why subject them to hours of PowerPoint hell or endless rehashes of decisions that were made two meetings ago? You want your meetings to generate productivity and creativity. As with anything, you reap what you sow. Be a leader and lead the meeting.
Here are some tips to run a more efficient, creative, and non-coma-inducing meeting:
1. Have an agenda, including whom you expect to speak and on what topic.
2. Distribute the agenda a day (or at least several hours) in advance so that people can come prepared.
3. Start the meeting on time. If people are late, they’ll know to be punctual next time.
4. Respect other people’s schedules and workload by ending the meeting on time.
5. Assign someone to take notes and create a recap for distribution later.
6. Get to the point and stay on topic.
7. Invite discussion, but keep it relevant and moving forward.
8. Clarify next steps and who’s responsible for them.
9. Remember that it’s okay to have fun.
10. When appropriate, serve ice cream.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Image by Seattle Municipal Archives
Tags: Business Meetings, Google, PowerPoint, Skype
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April 21st, 2013
Apparently he would let someone tell him that he is destined to be a reality TV star, when in actual reality, he has become a punch line. This elite athlete who speaks without consonants (or thinking) has let himself be talked out of the realm of Olympic Gold Medalists and into the land of Kardashian.
E! Network has launched a reality series, built around the celebrity swimmer, called What Would Ryan Lochte Do? I first became aware of this when reading a column on Salon.com that highlighted 10 good things about a horrifying week. As a former news anchor, I was reeled in by number 10, and it hooked me bad. I had to watch it several times. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was, indeed, a break from a horrifying week. From a PR perspective, however, it’s just as funny, but I thought, “Thank heaven that’s someone else’s train wreck.”
Was it unprofessional of the anchors to mock their guest? Well, yes, cathartic though it may have been, technically, it’s not nice to publicly bust someone for being an inarticulate buffoon. Was it ridiculous to have booked that guest in the first place? It’s a morning program, which, these days is more entertainment than news, so if he had to be booked, the morning show was the place to put him. And honestly, if a producer is approached with the chance to book an Olympic gold medalist, I think most would bite.
But let’s look further up the food chain to the people who are advising and “handling” Ryan Lochte. I can’t imagine it takes too many conversations with this ambitious young man to figure out that there are some things he does better than others. Speaking intelligently and coherently isn’t one of them. So by all means, give him an unscripted, reality television show.
Reading about his self-proclaimed desire to emulate Kim Kardashian in the fame game, it’s clear that no one is forcing Lochte to dip his big toe into this particular cesspool. It’s also clear he’s not satisfied with the millions he earns in endorsement deals with Gatorade, Speedo, Gillette, Mutual of Omaha, or from his own fashion line. He’s an adult. He knows what he wants, and he wants fame and fortune—beyond those that come with the prestige of being an elite Olympian.
Still. Is anyone advising Lochte to look at the long game? Did any of his handlers have a conversation with him about his own strengths and weaknesses? About his image? About how long and hard he’s worked to attain the luster of Olympic gold? About how it would be a shame to go from Olympic hero to laughing stock?
A Google search of “news anchors” and “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” reveals 63-million hits. Read through just the first two pages and you’ll get the drift. No one’s laughing with Ryan. The reviews for the show itself are even less kind, with Variety answering the question: “Not be caught dead watching this kind of TV show.”
Ryan Lochte, the young man, may take all this in stride. He is part of a generation used to living out loud. Intimacies once reserved for diaries and best friends are now displayed for public review. But Ryan Lochte, the brand, may find all this a little harder to deal with. Will major corporations still want him fronting their brands?
He may find that his reality TV debut was a honey of a boo boo.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Image by nrc photos
Tags: E!, Kim Kardashian, Reality TV, Ryan Lochte, Salon
Posted in Branding & Positioning, Latest News, Media Relations, Public Relations | Comments Off
February 14th, 2013
Sorry, but I have to call unnecessary roughness here. And now I’m done with football metaphors because they’re not as interesting as, say, the infield-fly rule.
This post on Marketwatch calls out Poland Spring for not making the most of its social media moment in the wake of Sen. Marco Rubio’s sip slip.
(As a former Senate staffer, may I say, the Senator, however much he may have choked on his big moment, was also the victim of sloppy staff work. You don’t leave a bottle of water walking distance away from your boss. You put a glass of water within easy reach. Drinking during the speech still would have been awkward, but it wouldn’t have been Chevy Chase-as-Gerald Ford awkward.)
Comparing Poland Spring to Oreo is not valid. This is apples and orange juice. The Oreo folks bought time in the Super Bowl, an event watched by 111 million people. Oreo had a plan in place with a whole PR team on alert waiting for a “moment” within the space where it had already invested $4 million.
How was Poland Spring supposed to know that during a speech no one was watching (until this one went viral) the speaker was going to practically swallow his tongue and spend precious seconds grasping, not just for water, but for identifiable Poland Spring water? Riddle me that Bat Girl.
One could argue, it shouldn’t have taken until noon the next day for Poland Spring to reflect on its cameo, but to dress the company down for “fumbling its Rubio moment” strikes me as just piling on.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Image by sskennel
Tags: Marco Rubio, Poland Spring
Posted in Branding & Positioning, Latest News, Politics, Public Relations | Comments Off
December 24th, 2012
If you’re seeking out a public relations blog, you may be disappointed in this one. (Feel free to read back issues.) But since you’re seeking out a public relations blog on Christmas Eve, you may have come to the right place, after all. For this edition has less to do with public relations than private ones. It’s more about those thoughts and emotions that, this time of year, we may keep to ourselves for noble reasons, but which are okay to express.
Let me start by saying I love Christmas. From every angle, I love Christmas. The lapsed Catholic in me loves a beautifully sung Ave Maria as much as the child in me loves a stop-motion Holly Jolly Christmas. I love a tasteful, twinkling, white light yardscape and I fully appreciate a tacky lawn mashup featuring everyone from the Grinch to the Magi. I love an Ina Garten buffet as much as I do LaVerdiere’s ribbon candy and peanut brittle. I will not miss a showing of White Christmas, Holiday Inn, or The Bishop’s Wife. (I don’t, however, wear reindeer sweaters or jewelry that lights up. Nor do I judge others who do.)
For all of this, we can thank—or blame—my mother. A child of The Great Depression (the first one), she went above and beyond at Christmastime for her family. Slinkeys and Silly String for everyone! Of course you can use them in the house, it’s Christmas! Hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls after midnight mass, Christmas tree cookies while we open presents. It’s 5 a.m.? So, what! It’s Christmas! My mother used to paraphrase Guy Lombardo, saying, “When I go, I’m taking Christmas with me!”
And for a while there, she kinda did.
In his beautiful novel, Ignorance, Milan Kundera wrote about nostalgia: “The Greek word for ‘return’ is nostos. Algos means ‘suffering.’ So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”
Believe me, I know from nostalgia.
For several Christmases after my mother died, I went through the motions of enjoying Christmas. Her own joy of Christmas was half of mine. As family Christmases migrated from my parents’ home to ours, I took great pleasure in replicating what she had done and basking in her delight—and approval. Cherished ornaments or decorations marked our Christmases through the decades. Favorite recipes stirred happy memories of countless family Christmases. With her not here to preside over Christmas, well, what was the point?
While I’ve regained my hearty embrace of Christmas, there are moments each season when I am gripped with true nostalgia, that unappeased yearning to return either to my mother’s kitchen or to when she sat in mine. So, I bake Christmas cookies, play Bing Crosby, sing Ave Maria, and believe in Santa Clause because my mother did. I carry on the traditions of our family celebrations so that her grandchildren don’t forget her and so that her great grandchildren, whom she never met, will know her just a little. Never one to shun the spotlight, my mother would appreciate knowing she’s still front and center.
I started writing on this topic because a good number of my friends lost parents this year and they’re about to experience their first Christmas without them. Nostalgia, in all its bittersweetness, is sure to find them. Burying our parents may be the natural order of things, but it’s little comfort at any time of year, least of all at Christmas.
A bit of advice that took me years to figure out: our parents gave us these traditions for just this purpose—to carry on when they’re no longer with us. So when nostalgia comes calling this Christmas, embrace it. And hand it a Christmas tree cookie.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Photo of Felicia Knight’s childhood Santas by Felicia Knight
Tags: Ave Maria, Bing Crosby, Christmas, Guy Lombardo, Nostalgia, White Christmas
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November 21st, 2012
Election Night is over, but those of you who spent it playing drinking games that centered on words such as “magic number,” “Ohio,” “Obamacare,” or “Romnesia” can sober up and steel yourselves for the most wonderful time of the year: the cliché-riddled winter season of news stories, weather events, and promo copy that can’t get enough of “over the river and through the woods,” “there’s something for everyone,” and the mother, father, and granddaddy of all, “’tis the season.”
Go ahead, take a shot every time you hear “‘tis the season” this season and you’ll be drunk in the twinkle of an eye. Across the country, news outlets let us know “’tis the season” for everything from scam artists, snow tires, and Christmas tree fires to off-season motel rates, asphalt shingles, or, according to the New York Times, arty black-and-white celebrity photo books.
’Tis the season for just about everything… except good will toward men (too cliché?).
Eastcoasters, if you need a bigger holiday buzz, take a chug each time you hear “good ol’ fashioned nor’easter.” (I’ve never understood that term. What makes it old fashioned? Does it arrive wearing a starched collar and knickers? And what makes it good?) If you started the game back when Hurricane Sandy converged with the winter storm that battered the Northeast, then you still may be hung over.
If hair of the dog that bit you is warranted, you’d better watch out for “you’d better watch out.” This phrase is usually followed by the words “for holiday scam artists,” “for Christmas tree fires,” or – if coupled with a good ol’ fashioned nor’easter – flying asphalt shingles.
Yet another reason to raise your glass: “The Grinch who stole”… the money for the homeless shelter, the donated toys for tots, the wise men from the crèche – just fill in the blank. Sad stories all, made all the sadder by the same words we heard and read last year. And the year before.
As a PR professional, I steer clients away from the lure of “snappy” clichés, no matter what the season. No “great eggspectations” at Easter, no “baby, you’re a firework” during the Fourth of July, no “break open the bubbly” on New Year’s Eve.
It’s not quite the New Year, of course, but a resolution may be in order: fewer clichés, more imagination, less reliance on old chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
I’ll drink to that.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Image by Serge Melki
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October 12th, 2012
Me answering my phone: Felicia Knight
Caller: Yeah, um I need your address. My boss wants me to mail you something.
Me: Excuse me?
Caller: I need your address.
Me: May I ask who’s calling?
Caller: I’m [first name only]. My boss, [his name] wants me to mail you something. I have no idea what it is. He just said to mail it to you.
Me: (Because I know said boss, I supply my address). I’m sorry – may I have your name again?
Caller: I’m [first name only].
Me: May I ask your full name?
Caller: [Last name only]. Well, um that’s it. Thanks. (click)
Me: (To the cat) What the hell was that?
Now, add to all of the caller’s lines the attitude of “Just so you know, I was busy getting ideas on Pinterest for my destination wedding in Aruba before my boss interrupted me with this lame project, so could we move it along?”
I’ve written about bad professional behavior before, but the above exchange, which took place about twenty minutes ago, as I write this, left me wondering if I’d just done a scene with Cerie on 30 Rock.
Yes, it would be nice to think that a young woman who’s already in the business world, working for a respected law firm, would have a clue regarding professional conduct, etiquette, and simple phone manners.
For the sake of argument, however, let’s say she doesn’t.
Let’s say she’s of an age where the shorthand of emoticons and text messages have, for her, translated into truncated in-person communication as well.
“I need your address” with no introduction to a stranger is no different from, “RU free 2nite?” texted to a bestie.
Let’s say the informality of college life led her to believe that every day at the office is casual Friday. In other words, let’s say, it’s not entirely her fault that in the business world, she doesn’t quite understand that now she has to deal with people like me.
People like me put a lot of stock in first impressions. If your assistant or receptionist is rude, incompetent, or just plain clueless, I’m unlikely to cut you or your company much slack. Why? Because you did the hiring and apparently not the firing. Because you didn’t bother with any customer relations training. Because you don’t seem to care what image your employees present to the public.
That’s just for starters.
In my early teens, I worked at a tourist-town waterfront snack bar serving fried clams, burgers, and Popsicles. (Had Pinterest been around then, I may have found it infinitely more appealing than emptying the Fryolator.) My first day on the job, my boss explained that every customer is greeted with a smile, and a “How may I help you?” Change is counted out and handed over with a “thanks so much, come back and see us again.” And no matter how many times an out-of-stater asks, “Now, is that the ocean right here?” the reply is, “Yes, Ma’am, that’s the Atlantic Ocean.”
Smart-mouthed answers with attitude are more fun, but they substantially reduce the tips, and – in some cases – actual employment. The short lesson in customer relations stayed with me.
Every decent employer I’ve had since took the time to explain and illustrate to employees the importance of representing the office in a professional manner.
If employers can’t take the personal time to guide young employees, then they should hire someone to do it. If employers can’t afford that, then they should develop an employee handbook and a mechanism to prove employees have read and understood it. At the very least, they should have a probationary period with some teeth in it.
It’s easy to go around sputtering like a Dickensian matron about “young people today” or “back in my day.” But the truth is corporate culture – whether your corporation is 500 people or two – is a top-down issue. Employers set the tone. They should lead by example. They should instruct their managers to teach and mentor as well as manage.
Employees, in turn, should take ownership of and pride in their own product as representatives of the company.
And save the attitude for their blogs.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Image by Seattle Municipal Archives
Tags: 30 Rock, Customer Service, Employee Training, Pinterest
Posted in Media Relations, Public Relations | Comments Off
September 5th, 2012
It’s not often that a Facebook post is refreshing. Amusing, yes. Even laugh out loud funny, yes. Irritating, yes. Banal, oh, God yes.But refreshing?As Eliza Doolittle would say, “Gaaawn!”
But I saw one. It was from a friend who recently made the leap–by choice–from reporter to PR professional. (What all my reporter friends called “going to the dark side” when I did it 15 years ago.)
Public relations, whether you do it for multiple clients or in-house for just one, can be a grind. If earned media placements are your bread and butter, it can be difficult to keep your chin up day after day.
Newsrooms are bombarded with story pitches. Just for fun, let’s pretend every one’s a gem. There still are myriad reasons why you can’t get yours broadcast, published, or posted. Factors as big as breaking news and as small as lost voice mail can step in and ruin the best-laid plans. And then, of course, sometimes, they just ain’thittin’ what you’re pitchin’.
On the other hand, when someone hears your pitch and says, “I’d love to learn more about that. Could you send me more information?” Well, life is good. Not, I-just-won-the-Powerball-good. But it’s good. And when the story does get told, you really do want tell all your friends. It’s that confluence of a solid story idea in the hands of a good reporter presented to the public for everyone’s benefit.
My friend’s Facebook post expressed delight at a story done about his client. His exuberance was clear. The story wasn’t a puff piece, either. It was a straightforward report about a positive trend for his client that happened to be true—and consequential for those involved. I smiled and thought, “Welcome to the satisfaction of having a good story well told.” His post was refreshing because it reinforced the idea that what we do can matter to a lot of people.
As with any endeavor, there are those who will use this profession for evil instead of good, but let’s not be a buzz kill. To be clear, public relations isn’t the profession that will cure cancer. It won’t feed the hungry, legislate equality, or produce great art. But we, as PR professionals, can help all those causes and countless more tell their stories.
And that’s not a bad day’s work.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Image by Owen Brown
Tags: Facebook, Powerball
Posted in Media Relations, Public Relations | Comments Off
June 27th, 2012
In the wake of the universally applauded conviction of rapist Jerry Sandusky and the solving of the Etan Patz child abduction case that gave birth to faces on milk cartons, I’d like to address a word that has again come to the fore: closure.
How about a moratorium on imposing “closure” on the victims and families upon whom tragedy is visited. Whether they are caught up in national media maelstroms or quietly suffering in anonymity, the victims and families ravaged by life-altering catastrophe are rarely able to tuck away their residual pain and suffering once the news cycle is over or the file closed.
Once the pedophiles are convicted, the drunk drivers sentenced, the bodies discovered, or the confessions dictated, there is a rush from analysts and commentators and well-meaning friends or family to sum it all up by saying “at least now, they’ll have closure.”
The cameras leave and the relatives disperse to their various corners of the country. The facts are filed and judgments delivered. The crisis passes. But there’s still the fact of the incident itself that leaves its own unanswered – and often unanswerable – questions and doubts:
Why my child?
Why my wife?
Why would someone do this?
Could I have helped?
What did I miss?
Why didn’t I take the bus instead of the plane?
What if?
It’s true that the passage of time, steps taken toward healing, and the support of others can help make life more bearable, but everyone’s timetable is her own. How long does it take to recover from child rape? From random violence? From deliberate violence? From a simple twist of fate? What constitutes recovery? And is recovery the same thing as closure? No. People may recover, but that wound is always there. The scar tissue may vary, but it’s always there.
By imposing closure, we’re telling people, “Okay, you’ve had a bad run, but now it’s over. Buck up and let’s all move on.” To quote Atticus Finch (because I like to), “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Think about that suggestion of closure: “An important man befriended you, gained your trust, made you feel special, raped you, then threatened you into silence. Now that he’s going to prison, I hope you’ll have some closure.”
Or, “A man has confessed to killing your six-year-old son 33 years ago. I know you may have harbored some deep glimmer of hope that he’s still out there somewhere alive, but at least now you know. Now you have closure.”
Instead of striving for closure, it seems far kinder to understand that victims now have a whole new set of circumstances to process and that will take time.
Instead of closing, that door is just opening.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Image by CarbonNYC
Tags: Etan Patz, Jerry Sandusky, News Media
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June 16th, 2012
Felicia Knight’s blog, written for the National Endowment for the Arts Website, welcoming Chairman Rocco Landesman to Maine.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Tags: Arts, Maine, National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman
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April 19th, 2012
A couple of years ago, I blogged about the New York Times’s decision not to use the word “tweet” in the context of Twitter. It was a classic case of denial – a refusal to acknowledge the oncoming train headed straight for the old platform.
Now we have the Associated Press and several respected dictionaries orchestrating a grammatical train wreck. Hyperbole? Perhaps. But we’re already on board that metaphor so let’s keep chugging. The Washington Post reported recently on the AP’s approval of the use of the adverb “hopefully” for “it is hoped” in addition to the established “in a hopeful manner.”
It’s one thing for word usage in conversation to devolve into disjuncts (clearly, frankly, and most annoying among them: “most importantly”), but quite another for respected purveyors of English language rules to sanction poor grammar.
Just because people say “It’s not too bad of a day” (the criminal, ubiquitous insertion of “of” is worth a blog of its own), or “The ship sunk two miles off shore,” or “He needs 60 votes or less to win” doesn’t make them correct. Just because more and more people use words incorrectly more and more often, doesn’t make the act any more acceptable. If anything, it makes it less so.
I understand the argument that languages are always evolving. Sumer is no longer icumen in, after all. Words are invented or lost, meanings change. The rules of language and grammar, however, are there to give structure, underscore meaning, as well as orchestrate melody and cadence.
Rules, of course, can be broken. When writing dialogue or dialect – or a blog – there is more leeway. Writing in a conversational manner often demands the rules are tossed out altogether. What we shouldn’t do is say there are no rules because no one’s following them – or teaching them.
I’ve disagreed with the AP Stylebook before. I favor the serial comma. AP advises against it. I use apostrophe “s” at the end of proper nouns ending with “s.” AP advises an apostrophe only. Even though I’m a former journalist, I grew up on Strunk & White. By the time I saw an AP Stylebook, I was already indoctrinated.
Given that the AP, the Oxford English Dictionary, Webster’s New World College Dictionary, and the American Heritage Dictionary all have bowed to “hopefully,” I’m pretty sure the aforementioned train has left the station. It is hoped, however, some will let it pass them by.
Felicia Knight is President of Knight Vision International, LLC
Image by Mactitioner
Tags: Associated Press, Grammar, Hopefully, New York Times, Strunk & White, Washington Post, Writing
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