Archives for pio
I was perusing U.S. News and World Report and found an interesting list that bodes well for us and our profession as public relations and communications specialists.
The magazine has placed PR specialist among the top 50 careers of 2011. The publication says the industry is expected to add 66,000 jobs, or grow by a whopping 24 percent, between 2008 and 2018. Median annual earnings are reported at $51, 960, with the top 10 percent making about $96,000 although in my estimation, on the overall lines I have seen of PIO and PAO salaries the figure skews a little low on the median.
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.
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?
I have posted in the past about ambush type journalism and my own scales of justice for dealing with media that does not play nicely. (See Banned for Life) Over the years in both my regular PR jobs and in the fire department, I have encountered journalists who have for a better phrase “flipped the script,” in essence pitching one thing with one side of their face, while actually doing the opposite. Kind of a two faced approach.
By “flip the script,” I mean they sometimes will give you the distinct impression they are writing something that will flatter your department or otherwise serve your interests — when all along they’re planning to sucker punch you using the spiral binding on their reporter’s notebook to hit you from behind.
A few years back I had the opportunity to visit and tour the Microsoft House of the Future on their campus in Seattle. The house, which looks like the interior of a real house, thrusts you 20 years into the future to show you how Microsoft products in R&D will help enhance our lives. One of the recurring themes during the visit was how “smart phones” would become the virtual nerve center of our daily life. The phones would open our front door, scan merchandise in stores, act as the remote to our electronics and do all the functions of our PC’s. Sort of like the famous Honeymooners episode where Ralph is the Chef of the Future selling one kitchen gadget that does the work of many.
I want to thank Barry Nuss who is the Fire Marshal and Public Information Officer for the Lincoln County Fire Protection District 1 in Troy, Missouri, for requesting I reach out to fellow PIO’s and PAO’s to find out what they carry in their “go bags” for large scale incidents.
I’m interested to see what you guys travel to incidents with. I am in the position of being both a PIO and Class A firefighter. I have to be prepared on numerous fronts to have “go to” equipment in a number of places.
As of this writing the 14th miner has been rescued from the Copiapo, Chile cooper and gold mine. I like many, especially those of us in the emergency services, were up all night watching the human drama that was unfolding before our eyes. I was riveted to the raw internet feed from CNN. To this point it has been a flawless rescue effort.
I am duly impressed by the skill and professionalism of the entire rescue team. From those at the mine shaft opening to the rescue workers who went down to supervise the efforts in the mine to the EMT’s and medical staff and mine and government administrators, everything has been done in an organized and flawless manner.
I’m pretty lucky in Smithtown, NY where I serve as the FD PIO. Most of our day to day press initiatives are covered by the local media which consists of three weekly newspapers and two or three websites which maintain hyper local sites.
If I have a specific alarm report that I want to disseminate to the press, I send a release with photos and let the editors do their thing. In almost all instances the locals do a great job of rewriting the story to fit their papers styles. I always try to place a quote or two in the body of my release but if an editor calls for more information or quotes, I’m happy to provide.
My problem lies with one of the weeklies in that they take my releases verbatim. When I write a release I write it in “fire-ese.” I tell the facts, give the numbers of the apparatus, give hours in military time etc. I use parenthesis around the military time, or other fire jargon to better explain, but this paper prints it all, as mentioned, verbatim.
While I was on the road in Texas last week I had the opportunity one night to go into my folders to review PR and marketing links and articles that I stockpile but usually put off reading. In some of my golden oldies from this past June was a video I viewed on “Tips on creating Good Web Videos.” The video was a part the Tactics Video series presented by the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America.
Yesterday evening we trekked out to the Suffolk County Fire Academy for a drill. The “Tower” is a facsimile of a commercial office building. I always liked this drill since in my town we have very few commercial buildings and this is our one opportunity each year to hone our skills and learn new techniques in attacking a fire in this type of structure.
Normally, as PIO, I am tasked with taking pictures and video of the drill to post online and use for internal purposes. It has been a few years since I have had the chance to do an actual hands on evolution of the Tower.
We were a little short handed on the line officer end when we left the firehouse with an Engine and Ladder. I jumped into the officer’s seat on Engine 3 to head out to the Academy.
Last month I was at a conference in Washington for an organization whose board I Chair. I was asked to give a brief presentation. I spoke, it was well received, but when I sat down the person sitting next to me whispered, “Nice job, you must have been under the gun though, you didn’t do a PowerPoint.” This got me to thinking.
Each Sunday morning at the firehouse we hold probationary training school. Due to the nature of the material we cover the advent of PowerPoint has been a boon. We can lecture, show the numerous acronyms we use in the fire service relevant to the lecture in written form on the screen and play video and still shots. All of this helps enhance our training methods. But in my overall estimation, the vast majority of times we all have to sit through tedious PowerPoint presentations can be avoided by not showing them at all.
When I need to scour lists for media contacts I use Cision. At a cost of $3,000 per year it creates a perennial sweat for me worrying whether the funds will be in the budget to cover this relatively large expenditure the next fiscal year.
I’m always on the lookout for new ways to reach out to the media. A new FREE way to gather information comes from MBlast who this month introduced MediaSync. The website helps users find relevant journalists and outlets, keep current on editorial calendars, and organize media campaigns. Although geared for marketers I have been playing with the service and find it relevant for PR use.
Often we say someone is a good public speaker. But a closer look reveals that someone might be a good public speaker in one discipline while lacking skill in another spoken area.
In my mind public speaking, in our profession as PIO’s, is segmented into a few distinct areas. Throughout the year we address many different audiences in many different venues, each requiring their own specific set of verbal commands and finesse.
I read a quote online recently by Anderson Cooper that puts this discussion into perspective: “Being on camera is easy for me, but speaking in front of several thousands of people, it’s a different skill set. Making speeches gave me a nervous pit in my stomach, so I forced myself to do it.”
I consider myself, due in part to a radio and TV background, to be a pretty good overall public speaker, but when I segment my responsibilities out, the report card indicates that I do need to go to study hall in a few area’s –
A lot of what we do as PIO’s is based on standard formula and template. If we are sending out releases and working with the press at an incident scene we are pretty much like baseball umpires, calling them as we see them. There is no room for embellishment or spin in our line of work. This is one of the aspects of our job that we should be thankful for when we look at the alternatives, like choosing sleazoid PR as a career specialty.
Yesterday afternoon my department was toned out for a mutual aid on a working fire in a neighboring town. We sent a Chief and an Engine. I followed the transmissions on my scanner and it appeared our work was limited. The scene of the fire was right near a notorious, long shuttered psychiatric hospital. A number of plans are on the table of how to eventually utilize the land the facility is standing on. Everything from parks to a planned community is on the table.
Due to the interest in the site, I figured the media would be all over this one. Little did I know that the media would be all over me.






















