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TSA Should Screen their own PR and Marketing Efforts

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Over the holiday weekend I have had the opportunity to do some reading and investigation to attempt to put together the facts from a PR perspective of how things could go so terribly wrong in terms of the “they against us” attitude most folks now have towards the TSA. A number of PR gaffs has lead to this perception.

First off the lame TSA Administrator John Pistole used a worn out administration card saying the TSA knows what right for our citizens but unfortunately they haven’t done a good enough job educating people. Again, we’re so stupid that the wonderful changes they put in place and the stellar way in which they presented it to the public is above our scope of appreciation.

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Posted by on November 29, 2010 • Filed under: administration-leadership, Best Practices, Branding, Marketing, Media Outreach, Opinion, Public Outreach, Public Scrutiny, Social Media • Tagged: ,

Even the Walls have Ears

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I lucked out a few weeks ago. I was in a hotel in DC setting up for an evening event when I heard a session starting in the adjoining room from a daylong conference. The topic was managing your time to perform social media duties. I heard the whole session through the wall and was actually able to glom the handout from the session afterwards when a kind participant gave me an extra copy.

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Posted by on November 24, 2010 • Filed under: Social Media • Tagged: , , , ,

A Burning Ember can become a Raging Blaze

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Today I look at the power of viral video and how it can make a big problem into a humungous problem.

We are certainly all aware of the new TSA mandates regarding personal search in airports if you wave off the new full body scanning machines. I find this to be intrusive and in many instances counterproductive. Since every recent terrorist criminal has gotten through screening before attempting to do damage, the current screening hardware is always one generation older then the minds of the Islamic terrorist. They operate by seeking out ways to bypass current means of screening. That is why we never see any of these losers caught at a security checkpoint. The Israeli system of psychological questioning and profiling has been pretty much full proof and should teach us a lesson into the direction we should take in the future.

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Posted by on November 22, 2010 • Filed under: Opinion • Tagged: , , ,

How do I Address a Judge?

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I just returned from Washington, DC where I worked on a reception that was held for members of congress. In attendance were members, past members, military folks, academics etc.

Back at the office a few months ago while sending out invitations to the event I had a déjà vu all over again moment. As many times as I or many of my fellow PIO’s send out correspondence to public officials and the like we seem to always end up yelling from our offices “How do I address a Judge in a letter?” I personally have sent these type of correspondence out for over twenty years but seem to have a memory loss each time I’m on the address and salutation lines.

So here are some lessons I learned about salutations that I hope will prevent me from looking like the office idiot.

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Posted by on November 18, 2010 • Filed under: Grammar Police • Tagged: , , , ,

Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way

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Although I am conservative in thought, I remain neutral when it comes to looking at the public relations and marketing aura’s set off by politicians. I paid close attention to the recently completed midterm elections and see a direct correlation in the way politicians behave, the cardinal rules they must obey and that of the image of the Chiefs and officers in our own fire departments.

I now offer some advice to those elected officials, and our own department leaders, who may need, depending on your perspective, a tweaking of their image or a complete makeover.

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Posted by on November 15, 2010 • Filed under: administration-leadership, Opinion • Tagged: ,

Responding to unfounded Complaints

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As a PR and marketing guy I have over the year been confronted, when a consumer or customer thinks that an injustice has been done to them, spew the old line “I’m going to the papers with this.”

I used to love to hear this sentence spoken when I knew someone with no case, truth or validation to their complaint assumed the “papers” would hold the presses so the masses could hear that we were out of blue logo tees or a donation receipt was not mailed to a donor within moments of the envelope being opened. The chance a journalist or reporter had in receiving a Pulitzer Prize for the irate information usually tended to have them pass on the story.

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Posted by on November 12, 2010 • Filed under: Crisis Communications, Journalists and Reporters, Marketing, Media Outreach, Opinion, Public Outreach, Public Scrutiny, Social Media • Tagged: , , , , , ,

Should we use social media as a crisis or emergency unfolds?

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Over the last year or so I have been closely watching how various corporations, emergency service arms and organizations utilize social media to report on a serious incident or crisis. I am not totally convienced that reporting details rapidly on Twitter or Facebook is the most advantageous way to let the public know about an emergency. With things moving so quickly and so much at stake in giving details, social media can trap you into churning out information before we can actually put the unfolding events into perspective. A case in point took place in Singapore last week.

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Posted by on November 9, 2010 • Filed under: Best Practices, Crisis Communications, major-incidents, Media Outreach, news, Opinion, Public Outreach, Social Media • Tagged: , , , , ,

Deep Frying Turkey PSA

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Yesterday evening I was watching the Mike Huckabee Show on Fox. I like Huckabee. He’s sort of like a left over relic from the Leave it to Beaver era when the country was a kinder, gentler place.

Huck had a cooking piece on about deep frying a turkey. It got me to thinking that many of us as PIO’s are getting ready to let our community know, through releases, speaking engagements or on our websites the numerous dangers presented around Thanksgiving  by this form of cooking.

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Posted by on November 8, 2010 • Filed under: fire-prevention-education, firefighter-safety-health, PSA's, Public Outreach • Tagged: , , , , , ,

Quotation “Marks”

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I am a quotation mark junkie. I am an offender for the overuse of the marks. If you read through my posts you will see me put quotation marks around quotations marks!

To try to break the habit on both this blog and in my daily PR and marketing writing I scanned Google to find out what the parameters are for using quotation marks.

Only in this day and age would someone have so little time on their hands that they have devoted an entire blog to – well “quotation marks.”

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Posted by on November 4, 2010 • Filed under: Grammar Police • Tagged: ,

The PIO Should Keep Homeowners Informed on the Fire Ground

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The Backstep Firefighter made a post yesterday titled PR DILEMA:BUFFALO. The post, with video, is about a house fire in Buffalo, the department’s perception of how it was fighting the fire and a neighbor’s perception of lack of effort to get water on the job.

Backstep Firefighter concluded the post with these questions -

Do our public relations go far enough in explaining what we do?
Are our usual messages too technical?

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Posted by on November 2, 2010 • Filed under: Best Practices, Opinion, Public Outreach • Tagged: , , ,

One Page Per Day

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When we sit down as PIO’s  to write at work we are confronted by a million distractions. Cell phones ringing and sending out a variety of tones to indicate emails, text messages etc., computers whistling out their own tones when Twitter posts are received, someone is IMing us or email has arrived. A lot to absorb simultaneously. No wonder many old starchy grammar police types bemoan the disappearance of sound standard writing styles and a good grasp of the gramatic. With all these distractions we can no longer pay as close attention to the importance of the standard rules of English and writing. Or should we throw away style books and concentrate on the present? With all the complaints that no one can “write” anymore, we might actually be living in an age of need for the greatest writing skills of all time.

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Posted by on November 1, 2010 • Filed under: Grammar Police, Opinion, PIO Product Reviews, Social Media • Tagged: , ,