President Obama has just appointed Dr. Beth Karlan, head of the Cedars-Sinai Women’s Cancer Research Institute to a six-year appointment on the National Cancer Advisory Board. We congratulate Dr. Karlan on this new post. Her work at Cedars-Sinai since 1995 has led to the development of a game-changing multidisciplinary program that is reducing the threat of cancer to women through research, education, early detection and prevention. This is extraordinarily important work, as cancers of the breast and reproductive organs strike more than one-quarter million women in the U.S. each year.

My wife Liza and I have been advisory board members of the Women’s Cancer Research Institute’s annual fundraiser, “The Pink Party,” since its inception eight years ago. The Pink Party is the greatest financial contributor to the Institute, consistently providing over $4 million annually since 2005. GA also donates each year to this important cause.

With so many ways to give back to our communities, it is particularly rewarding to be involved with the Women’s Cancer Research Institute. Cancer affects so many people that we know and care about, and work like this gives hope to so many people who have been diagnosed or are undergoing treatment. The Women's Cancer Research Institute fosters collaborative research between scientists and physicians to bring the most innovative laboratory discoveries directly to women with breast and/or gynecologic cancers.

GA’s support of the Women’s Cancer Research Institute complements many of the firm’s other philanthropic endeavors. Each GA team member gives back to their respective communities and causes close to their hearts, whether it be donations, volunteering their time or serving on boards. We are proud of this culture of contribution, and heartily congratulate Dr. Karlan on the latest recognition of her contributions to reduce the threat of cancer to women.

As Tim Kreider wrote in his much talked-about opinion piece in The New York Times, “The ‘Busy’ Trap,” “the present hysteria [of being busy] is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it”. 

Moving away from the “too busy” mantra doesn’t need to involve drastic decisions. It really is a state of mind. The key is to empower yourself to create your own rules and “time” by prioritizing. These are two rules that work for me:

1.       Get away from the “doing”

Seems simple in theory, but actually taking a small amount of time each week to think through one or two big ideas or challenges can be difficult. Cal Newport outlines his process for “Getting Creative Things Done,” which includes blocking out time on the calendar and setting rules.

How this time is spent depends on the project. Writing my thoughts without pausing or creating lists can help organize my thoughts on a complex issue. Taking a walk helps remove distractions and provides a new perspective. Soliciting feedback from others helps to bring ideas into focus, seeing them from a different perspective or even sparking a new concept. 

2.       Connect with Others

Creating and nurturing relationships plays a vital role in our overall emotional wellbeing and health, including lowering stress, however with short-term requests gnawing away at time, it can be challenging to create distraction-free quality time.

Blocking out time in advance helps me plan ahead to ensure I create time to spend with family and friends.  For example, my mother and I have created a ritual of talking on the phone during my drive home from work, hands-free of course.  I have a standing “phone date” with a long-distance friend to ensure that we have time to catch up.

I also try to squeeze in opportunities when I have a few minutes by sending a text or email to a loved one simply to check in and see how they are doing.  This is one of my favorite ways to use time while waiting in a long line.

Time can be on your side if you are clear about what is important to you and create an agenda that supports these priorities.

With that said most communications errors regarding veterans occur because PR pros don’t think about or fully understand the population they are targeting. As a Navy reservist and founder of a fledgling non-profit focused on veteran entrepreneurs, I’ve had the opportunity in recent years to discuss this topic with amazing people from around the country who live, eat and breathe veterans’ services. I’ve learned a great deal and even dispelled some misconceptions of my own over time.

With Veterans Day coming up this Sunday, here are five crucial lessons about veterans for PR professionals:

1. They are not broken: You’ve read the headlines. Suicide rates are up. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) afflicts hundreds of thousands. Young veterans are unemployed. All true. But all misleading if taken as a representation of the general state of the veterans population. There are nearly 22 million veterans in the U.S., only 2.4 million of them have served since 9/11. That means that nearly 19 million veterans served in previous periods and are generally not in the news. These men and women help drive our economy. They run our companies. They are not broken, and our newer veterans are joining their ranks. But the everyday successes and reintegration of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans don’t create exciting copy for reporters. Before you make assumptions, dig deeper into the facts behind the headlines. By focusing on just the wounded and afflicted, you ignore the millions who are thriving.
2. They are not homogenous: The American military is an amazingly forward-thinking organization that celebrates diversity amongst its ranks. This happens not because the military wants to be a leader in social causes, but because service chiefs recognize that our nation is diverse and that Americans don’t serve as effectively in a one-size-fits-all organization. The same applies for veterans, who run the gamut of American identity, ethnicity, gender and sexual preference. They shouldn’t be simplified for communications purposes. There isn't a single kind of veteran, there isn't a single publication that reaches them, and there isn't a single message that reaches all of them.
3. They are not (all) Rambo: Most veterans never served in a combat role; the vast majority of service members provide support for the tip of the spear that the military thrusts into harm’s way. Like legal professionals, who only go to trial in one percent of cases, most veterans spent their careers performing the administrative, logistical and operational tasks necessary to keep a massive organization running. Stop thinking of them solely as gun-wielding macho men (and women) and think of them like you would the workforce of a multinational corporation. Don’t think that you can speak the language of a front-line combat infantryman and make a connection with every veteran.
4. They are public servants: Just like police officers, fire fighters and even, dare I say, politicians, veterans chose a path of public service that may have meant fewer rewards, a more challenging life, and less recognition on a daily basis. But their willingness to serve on behalf of the greater good should never be forgotten or ignored, even if they themselves will often just say that they were doing their job. It was surely one hell of a job. Tapping into that sense of service is crucial to reaching and engaging many veterans.
5. They need a hand, not a handout: Veterans can face challenges that require special solutions. They may have been mentally or physically injured. They may have had trouble finding a job because of constant deployments. They may have held a position in the military that doesn’t translate well to the civilian workforce. But these men and women who served aren’t asking to become dependents of the state. They just want what they are owed—retirement pay, health care, counseling and understanding. What they want and need is a hand up, not a hand out.

Veterans are not a fragile population that needs to be approached with kid gloves. They are people who did their job and hope that they will be recognized for their efforts and supported after their sacrifices. They have families. They are our friends and neighbors. While there are many who have suffered, they are the headline of the story; it is important to dig deeper and become better informed about what the entire, complex population looks like if you want to communicate with them. Keep that in mind, as you would when trying to communicate to mothers, teachers, punk rock devotees or any other national “population”, and you will avoid the most egregious errors.

Even if you make an honest mistake after doing the necessary research, just apologize, move on and don’t … do … it … again. Just like our country’s veterans, you are only human.

Happy Veterans Day.

Keep it simple, user-friendly and creative. When it comes to website design, these three tenets can be more challenging to stick to than you might think. It is important to remember that a website doesn’t just display information; it is a communication platform for your brand.

Simple

Inc. Magazine recommends that you “think of your company's website as a first impression for potential future clients.” You want viewers to return to your website not only for the content, but for the layout design as well. The layout should clearly direct the viewer’s eye across the page while still maintaining structure. Using contrasting sizes, colors and fonts will help with this concept. A page with little definition will leave a viewer confused and frustrated at having to search for information. The home page is an opportunity for you to demonstrate these concepts with the mission and purpose of your brand, because it is the first impression a potential client or new employee will have.

Typography on a website needs to be the appropriate size and color. Designers typically utilize a 10 point font size or smaller, however for a specific design element a larger text can be applied. A sans-serif font can clearly be read on the web (the graphic at the right demonstrates the difference between a serif and a sans-serif font). While communicating your brand’s message on a website, keep the variety of fonts to a minimum as to not distract from the overall purpose. Additionally, make sure to take advantage of line spacing; adjusting the spacing not only makes it visually pleasing, but also easy to read. Not enough line spacing causes the viewer to squint, while too much line spacing just looks like you are trying to fill space. Another fact to remember is that viewers don’t always have the same computer screen when viewing your website. When choosing the appropriate typography color, black and white is sometimes the most successful. If you do choose to use color it should not distract, but enhance the design of the website. Nothing is worse than a website that misuses the color wheel.

User-Friendly

To make a website user-friendly, a search box can be an important visual and navigation tool. According to Smashing Magazine, “on content-heavy websites, the search box is often the most frequently used design element.”  A simple, easily accessible search box increases value and reassures the viewer when they are looking for specific information. The search box should still tie-in with the overall feel of the site.

Your brand’s website should also be media friendly. Reporters, bloggers and potential clients should be able to effortlessly find your contact information, what you stand for as a brand, and examples of your work. A media center tab or other navigation bars help with this idea.

Often, viewers glance and scan a website for just seconds at a time. The goal for using your brand’s website as a communications platform is to inform the reader on the most important parts of your organization in those few seconds, as well as drawing them into spending more time on the website. Smashing Magazine notes that, “since users almost never read but scan we need to provide them with some focus anchors to fix their attention to the most important parts of our articles.” Block quotes and pulled quotes effectively capture information about your brand in a stylistic and purposeful way while creatively utilizing typography. Again, make sure the design of the quote still fits with the overall theme.

Lastly, keep in mind that you want viewers to be able to easily access your website from both their computer and their phone, so when adding graphics or animation, a short loading time is always best in order to communicate effectively.

Creative

It is important to remember that your brand’s website should incorporate a personal touch. A “Meet the Team” page is an example of where design should emphasize the personality of the brand. Adding photos or quotes adds a human element. This is where you can really stand out and appeal to a client not just through your experience, but through your personality as well.

If you are looking for some great examples that further demonstrate these principles, (RED) and Anacostia Watershed Society are two non-profit organizations that effectively communicate their brand through their inventive use of color and fonts.

While creating a brand’s website, the elements of simplicity, being user-friendly and creativity can become lost in the desire to “wow.”Ensure your website is visually appealing, while still presenting your content to viewers in a clear and efficient manner. Your website has a voice, so take advantage of the opportunity.

This article is cross-posted on Talent Zoo.

According to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, “Every two days, we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003.” It is easy to end up buried beneath an avalanche of information, processing thousands of messages while remembering few, which is why public relations professionals must understand how to package messages to break through the chaos of information overload.

TED Talks, one of the more successful messaging organizations of the 21^st century, offers the TED Commandments, which provide solid guidelines for creating unique, compelling speeches. The very first commandment is crucial:

1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick

In order to cut through the noise and strike a chord with your audience, you need to figure out what it is about a message that both catches someone’s eye and resonates with them. Determining how best to establish resonance is a fusion of the scientific and creative thought processes. It requires thinking outside of the box and understanding that what your audiencewants to hear is equally as important as what you want them to hear. It requires pushing the boundaries of traditional brainstorming questions such as, “Who is my audience?” and asking rather, “What does my audience care about?”

Sometimes resonance is found in the kernel of the message. But, you can develop a perfectly valid message that fails to resonate. In those cases, it’s not the meaning of a message that needs to be changed, but how the message is presented. At the core of this issue, fundamental to transmission of the message, are the words that you use.

The embedded video presents a thought-provoking example of how changing your words can draw new attention to a well-worn message, in this case “help me.” Better word choice can make a message resonate even when the meaning itself is unchanged.  

Crafting effective communication requires the selection of words that stand out from what people expect or are used to seeing. The blind man in the video is no longer begging for money, a familiar sight in any urban setting, but rather highlighting an everyday occurrence that he cannot enjoy. The new words turn his plea into something deeper, a story of his life. The message, bolstered by his physical appearance and location, has not changed at its core, but the unexpected and meaningful word selection draws the attention of passers-by.

Some practical examples of this can be found in a few of the most successful ad campaigns of 2012. Volkswagen’s most recent campaign, “It’s not the miles, it’s how you live them,” turns the audience’s attention from the generic car rankings and miles-per-gallon stats to a more poignant message revolving around laughter and life experiences. Likewise, Samsung’s latest and greatest attack on their arch nemesis, the Apple iPhone, changes the conversation from “What is the next big thing?” to “The next big thing is already here.” Nike in particular has mastered the art of developing mesmerizing visual campaigns built on a foundation of a simple, but evocative phrase like “Just Do It” that appeals to audience desires and needs without mimicking tired phrases.

Our CEO Eric Bovim indirectly summed up the point nicely in a recent email to our team, advising that in order for a message to be well received by its target, “the packaging of it, its delivery, must be compelling.” Customers value public relations professionals who understand how to impart new life into messages by meticulously, innovatively piecing together words that will evoke a new sense of meaning and importance for the intended audience.

This article is cross-posted on Flack Me, the PR Professionals’ Blog.

Given the recurring nature of the process, it is important to seek shortcuts and efficiencies wherever you can when operating an intern program. Here, in five steps, is a recipe for a great intern program created through trial and error at Gibraltar Associates (GA).

Step 1: Know what you want

Great interns don't just show up on your doorstep. With that in mind, before you ever publish a listing for an internship position, you need to decide the following three things.

First, what do you need interns for? Filling an administrative support role is much simpler than finding a budding Brian Solis or Gini Dietrich to support a new communications campaign. The higher your expectations for the internship, the more specific and targeted your job posting needs to be in order to save you time (and spare unqualified or inappropriate candidates from frustration). 

Second, where do you want your interns to come from? Whether you are trying to hire local college kids to be a supportive booster, seeking experienced graduate students, or looking for qualified but unemployed workers who are already out of school, it helps to target your search. Start with posting the internship on your own homepage, but also decide if you want to post on school job boards, job posting sites and Craigslist, or circulate a position among colleagues.

Finally, what do you expect an intern to be able to do? Good job postings clearly explain what experience and skills are desired of a potential intern and what the role will entail, ensuring you get candidates who are qualified, but also have appropriate expectations if hired.

Step 2: Structure, structure, structure

Interns arrive on day one completely uneducated in the ways of your company. It is your job, as an intern coordinator, to teach them; otherwise, you end up with unproductive and unhappy interns and an unimpressed staff. The key to launching interns down the path to success is to structure their program. Before they show up on the first day, help them understand what to expect. Create materials that you can reuse every time you hire a new intern, including a welcome memo with all the basic details governing their internship and life in your company; a list of projects that they will be responsible for on a recurring basis; and an orientation schedule for their first week to introduce them to your team and your clients.

What materials you need will vary by company, but the general theme is to think about what you would want to know if you were starting on day one. Think back to when you were a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed intern and figure out how to formalize that knowledge in print as much as humanly possible. This helps to ensure that orienting future intern groups will become progressively simpler as you get used to a certain method.

Step 3: Communicate early and often

You are not a wild animal forcing its babies to run off into the wild and survive on their own; you are an intern coordinator. Hopefully, the distinction is clear. Scheduling weekly or even daily check-in meetings with interns ensures that they are able to learn and grow in real-time, so that when obstacles–no work, too much work, unclear guidance–arise, problems never last long. 

Regular feedback and interaction help interns grow in knowledge and confidence. Also, the difference between a good intern and a fired intern can easily be active versus passive communications; so err on the side of over-communicating. It’s important to understand that they might need more of your time early on in order to succeed, but they will return the favor by completing increasingly accomplished work on an exponential growth curve.

Step 4: Integrate and educate

In an ideal intern program, by the time a round of internships is completed, you can't help but wish that you could hire every intern in the group. That will be a reflection on your choice of interns, but it will also reflect on your ability to help them integrate into your company. Interns are driven and eager; they have not yet found their way in life and understand that nothing positive will accrue to them if they can't show their value in an entry-level position. To help them succeed, work with the entire company to make everyone responsible for helping them grow in knowledge, experience and confidence. It takes a company to raise the perfect intern.

It is also important to remember that having an intern–particularly an unpaid intern–is not a right, but a privilege. Your company benefits from their labor, helping you keep personnel costs down as you pursue growth in other areas. Do not take interns for granted. View their growth as part of your responsibility to them, in exchange for their commitment and dedication.

Step 5: Enjoy

Ultimately, you will have brought in some promising young people and helped shape their lives, while they have helped your company take another step forward. Running an intern program is initially a lot of work, but the next time around, it will be easier. Eventually you will write your own recipe for a great intern program.

In closing: Where we brag about our interns

Make sure to enjoy your interns while you have them, and don't take them for granted; they will be gone before you are ready to let go. Here at GA we hated to say goodbye to recent interns like Will Newton, Pat Moan and Grace Fenstermaker. We were excited to hire recent intern Melinda Boisjolie last month as an account associate. And today we are still working to improve our recipe as we develop future public relations rock stars Mallory Meiser, DeAnne Bradley and Hunter Hardinge.

This article is cross-posted on Flack Me, the PR Professionals’ Blog.

DO

1. Revamp social sites on a regular basis: Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr or Flickr, make sure there is no content that paints you in a negative light. The key is continuing to monitor every once in a while—you never know when people will search for you (job interviews and school reunions come to mind).
2. Learn about SEO: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or webpage when included in a search engine’s results. Google yourself, see what is out there and see what people are saying about you. Brand Yourself is a free resource that does a great job of scanning your name online and helping boost relevant links to the top of search engine pages. Low-ranking content – or a lack of content -- could mean that you are missing out on a huge opportunity to stand out in the crowd, so start creating positive, visible results.
3. Actively use LinkedIn: According to this infographic on the breakdown of a person’s Google results, LinkedIn ranks higher than all other profiles including other social networks and website builders. Maintaining a professional profile will bode well in search results, along with being a valuable resource to make professional connections and stay on top of industry news.
4. Stay current, stay consistent: Just like your resume, keep your work and education history up to date online to avoid discrepancies in the future. Keep bios consistent across all social media platforms and link pages when relevant to create a holistic brand.
5. Maintain a balance: Join relevant online social groups, follow industry news, show unique passions—be real. Creating a personal website or blog that is centered on your interests is the perfect place to paint a positive image. It also shows employers who you are as an individual along with showcasing your writing skills. A few examples of places to create your own site are Wordpress, About.me, Weebly and Wix.

DON’T

1. Bash a current/potential job or client: Even if you do not explicitly name an organization or company, it is generally easy to figure out who you are talking about. It is also smart to avoid publishing negative comments about past jobs, which could deter potential employers. If you have nothing constructive to say, do not say it at all.
2. Post anything unprofessional: Even if you are not connected to your boss online, inappropriate content such as raunchy pictures and videos can resurface or get circulated among your coworkers. First impressions online are crucial, and this type of content can haunt you, especially when taken out of context. A general rule of thumb is if you wouldn’t want your grandma to see it, don’t post it.
3. Engage in online rants: Offensive statements and rude comments not only reflect poorly on you, but also on your employer. Learn how to express yourself tactfully even when you have strong opinions; you don’t want to contribute to an online persona that will restrict your opportunities in the future.
4. Assume privacy settings are foolproof: Despite the privacy settings on sites like Facebook, once content is made available online, it is difficult to get rid of it. Don’t assume that just because you untagged a photo or removed yourself from a group that something cannot be traced back to you.
5. Ignore the conversation: Your online brand is an ongoing process requiring engagement and attention. Don’t just listen to what others are saying about you; dive into the conversation and be proactive about engaging with and responding to others.

This article is cross-posted on Digital Pivot, The New Media E-Zine

Today, we live in a world with a vast amount of potential news resources. While the number of avenues for consuming news media continues to grow, many individuals appear to be losing trust in so-called “traditional" media outlets, especially when looking for credible news. In a sign of changing times, a recent Gallup survey reported that Americans are increasingly frustrated with the quality of television news–once a mainstay of everyday life–with a record low of only 21% feeling “great confidence” towards the medium. 

Research shows that we are increasingly looking to each other for news, through the use of social media. This is particularly true among people under the age of 25, who turn to social media hubs like Facebook and Twitter as a primary resource. In fact, a 2012 report found that more than half of all Americans have seen breaking news through social media before they hear or read about it via traditional news outlets.

This information is not exactly surprising. Social media tools do a great job of actively bringing information to the user, instead of viewers having to search for relevant news or passively awaiting it to be disseminated. Facebook allows you to access news apps that share updates based on location, popular topics, your interests and even what your friends are reading. With the use of a “hashtag,” Twitter users are able to track trending news topics throughout the world in real-time. Twitter even took it one step further with the release of “tailored trends” in June, which provide news that is more relevant to individual users and their interests.

Social media not only makes news easily accessible, but it also makes it fast. Recent events have shown us that such rapid delivery has the potential to be damaging, such as the infamous example of CNN and Fox News incorrectly reporting the Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act. In a race to be the first to report on the decision, the two networks incorrectly reported that the individual mandate had been struck down after skimming the Court’s decision summary, which mentioned the mandate “could not be sustained” under the Commerce Clause. In their desire to be first, they overlooked the final conclusion of the summary, which ultimately upheld the mandate.

Compounding their error was the fact that they had developed such fine-tuned social media machines that by the time they caught the errors–as covered extensively by SCOTUSblog, which did a post-mortem on how the TV giants failed–they had already been transmitting the news online in a manner guaranteed to spread more virally than a traditional TV broadcast. In hindsight, the rush to be first, and to do so in a manner optimized by the use of social media, created exponentially greater amounts of confusion and uncertainty than would have been possible before social media allowed every American to be both a creator and transmitter of news.

While social media has shown great potential as a breaking news source and a trend-setter for news, the policies and norms governing social media use still need work to ensure maximal credibility. A recent Pew Research Center news media report said that social media is still a relatively small driver for news, and it has not been overwhelming, yet. But this study, along with many others, does show that this trend is certainly becoming relevant. In today’s society, speed is king, but in a society where everyone wants to know, and they want to know it now, one must be careful not to sacrifice accuracy. In the long run, valuing speed over accuracy on social media, free from the confines of “facts” and “sources,” will cause these tools to be viewed as trivial sources of information, ruining the promise that they have shown in democratizing the flow of true news around the world.

There must be some amount of precaution when posting to social media outlets, especially since this content consists of quickly digestible and easily accessible bits of information. Some basic tips can help in ensuring accountability, while still retaining speed and convenience. When posting to social media, reporters and news outlets should provide a link to the full article, to guarantee that the small bit comes from an actual written piece. They can provide simple and pure verification, either from an expert or direct source. If the news is “breaking,” a reporter or news outlet could simply offer a recommendation to “read further,” “check back for more” or even “view another source” so as to not engrain their word as fact. And most importantly, anyone seeking to promulgate news over social media must take the time to separate fact from fiction before sharing it with their audiences.

The social media giants are even becoming aware of this trend and are actually providing their own advice to help ensure reliability. An example of this can be seen Twitter’s recent launch of their “Twitter for Newsrooms” media guide.

As our technologies progress, natural changes in the way information is shared is to be expected, but it is important not to sacrifice what is truly important: information that is correct and reliable. Credible sources are not always the fastest; they are the ones that are right.

A healthy workplace environment is an important element of a productive office. Employees who are encouraged to have fun, eat properly, exercise and achieve a sustainable work-life balance are happier at work and therefore able to achieve better results on projects.

Our team at Gibraltar Associates (GA) wholeheartedly subscribes to this notion of healthy productivity.

Our annual GA Day is a fun way to promote healthy competition between employees. Past years have included firing a cannon and zip lining among trees. This year, GA Day included a city-wide scavenger hunt (bonus points were given for excessive tweeting) followed by highly competitive, minimally skilled bowling. GA Day was a great way to get our office moving while also exercising our social media skills.

But fun doesn’t happen just once a year at Gibraltar. Implements of fun collect, seemingly of their own will, in the office. Golf clubs lean against cabinets so employees can practice their putts, and remote control helicopters abound in the junior staff cubicles. Hardly a day passes without someone trying to perfect his or her landing skills.

GA partner John Procter is a huge fan of the Parrot AR Drone 2.0, and uses the staff cubicles as practice airspace for an upcoming drone piloting competition. (Near misses with employees’ heads have decreased as his skills have improved.) Occasionally, when the drone is wandering the halls, it will take a direct hit from the USB-powered dart gun sitting on Brian Wagner’s desk. Just another day at the office, they claim.

These brief breaks in the busy workday for “copter time” and putt-putt maximize long-term employee happiness and creativity, benefiting GA’s clients.

A healthy and productive lifestyle is not complete without a healthy diet. Thanks to the expertise of our food and nutrition clients, GA staff is always up to date on the latest nutritional advice and trends. Recently, the GA interns learned about the benefits of Chia seeds—a super food packed with antioxidants and omega-3—though they were advised not to raise “Chia Pets” for food. And while no office is complete without the occasional candy delivery, Gibraltar’s sweets are usually countered by a bowl of blueberries or other healthy food to share with the office.

Exercise balls, a fun and healthy alternative to the average desk chair, abound in our office. Exercise balls help an individual engage the core muscles by forcing him or her to keep the ball stabilized while working. In light of recent reports announcing that sitting will kill you (scared yet?), exercise balls are a great alternative that alleviates the inactivity created by traditional office chairs. For these reasons, and for a nice change of pace, many of our employees have opted to switch to the fun, bouncy “chair.” And when the balls are not being used for chairs, some “square peg/round hole” employees try to fit them into the mini-basketball hoop. Reality has yet to intrude on their futile attempts.

Many of us are also active outside of work, participating in early morning running clubs, hitting the gym after a long day, or hiking with family. If an employee wishes to bike into the office, our building has bike storage, and we have spare closet space that can be used to store bike helmets and a change of clothes. Those employees that exercise regularly find that setting aside the time to work out helps them focus throughout the day and gives them more energy. On the weekends, GA employees turn off their computers and make plans with their friends and families.

These are just a few of the ways GA encourages healthy living and work-life balance. There is no perfect solution to creating a healthy workplace. Each company’s workplace environment must positively complement its business goals. But when done right, with the buy-in of the entire team, a positive environment can help ensure that every employee wakes up each morning healthy, and ready to tackle the day ahead.

Adding social media to a company’s communications mix can be a smart business move, and it can closely connect organizations with their key stakeholders – but not without risks.

Quite frankly, social media is a great tool and has become too ubiquitous to be ignored. With more than 66 percent of online adult users now connected to one or more social media platforms, engaging in sites like Facebook and Twitter can deliver messages and increase brand exposure to corners of the market quickly and effectively. And, those same tools can be used effectively if a PR disaster should hit. The problem is, they can also make matters far worse at the speed of a few key strokes.

It’s important to remember that a PR disaster can be sparked by the smallest misstep; social media has only exacerbated this vulnerability. It could be one Facebook heckler falsely claiming your employees are serial cat murderers (ask Chipotle). Or, it could be bloggers and tweeters that fan the flames so hot so fast that a policy choice such as the Komen Foundation’s decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood costs people their jobs, and an organization’s brand is severely damaged. Unfortunately, even innocent actions can become fodder for social media activists, and companies and organizations must be prepared to respond quickly.

The risks associated with social media can be prevented or mitigated with the use of good, old-fashioned issues- and crisis-management techniques:

1) Remember, Facebook, Twitter, websites, blogs, etc., are just the modern standard of communications tools. They are far from the first “inventions” to revolutionize the communications industry.

2) Be prepared for the inevitable. As the saying goes, “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” This has never been truer than in this age of instant communication. Preparation entails an in-depth assessment and analysis of risks.

3) Eliminate the risks that can be eliminated and develop appropriate responses to those that cannot.

4) Identify the right team to deal with each potential crisis.

5) Train the team and other relevant staff and then practice, practice, practice.

If companies and organizations keep these concepts in mind when leveraging social media, they can better protect themselves and ensure the trust of their customers and stakeholders.

Greenfield is not dead. But he became one of the first casualties in the early 2000s of CNN’s now highly publicized turnover of on-air talent. Since then, it’s been a slot machine of new faces. Remember Aaron Brown? Lou Dobbs? Even the venerable Jon King has seen his show “Jon King USA” canceled.

The network is now limping along in the cable news basement, reaping ratings below even those of MSNBC.

In the wake of the mass exodus of viewers in recent months, CNN has made its boldest move yet, awarding an as-yet-unnamed program to celebrity chef provocateur Anthony Bourdain.

Bourdain, if anything, is the total antithesis of the prototypical CNN host. He’s charming, funny, witty and also highly likeable. That was what CNN thought it had in Anderson Cooper. The notion of a dashing correspondent, in the field wearing a V-neck, is appealing, but unfortunately Cooper exudes an Upper West Side sensibility that does not go over so well with the rest of the country. He’s one fifteenth as likeable as Bourdain’s index finger. And that’s being generous.

CNN struggles to keep viewers because it struggles to keep us entertained, writes Michael Massing in the Columbia Journalism Review. His stinging column about the network cites “boredom” as the cause of its ratings erosion.

I like Bourdain. I have read all his books, laugh at his crude humor and think his personal brand might reinvigorate whatever slot he takes over at the network.

The play for Bourdain suggests the top brass know what ails them. Bourdain is an investment in “newstainment,” which, after all, is what attracts audiences – certainly more so than the regurgitation of hours-old news found first and reported long ago on Twitter. He may very well be the first step in the resurgence of CNN.

Food companies and soda makers have never been more in the spotlight. What now?

First, there must be some public acknowledgement on the part of the industry that some of their products contribute to obesity. This kind of brazen honesty would be refreshing to see, and would help rebuild public trust. The problem, however, is that the public trust may not yet be that broken. As a nation, we are still assigning the blame for the obesity problem to a crisis of personal will and choice.

The whistle-blowing on the food industry’s role in all of this, however, continues to appear everywhere. Todd Putman, the former top marketing executive at Coke, revealed some gut-wrenching truths about how the company once spoke of expanding its business. The campaign for their “share of stomach” and talk of “how to drive more ounces into more bodies more often” turns the narrative away from a crisis of personal choice and toward one that more resembles the behavior of the cigarette industry in the 1980s.

I don’t know if Big Soda is the new nicotine or the next Big Oil. There is a Jekyll-and-Hyde problem, though, that the industry must resolve. The article hyperlinked above ran in today’s edition of The Washington Post, which carried a large ad by Coke in the back of the paper that encouraged people to embrace moderation and exercise. These are nice sentiments and messages for the public good. But how exactly do we reconcile this Confucian food morality with a marketing ethos intent on invading our stomachs?

Big Food has some big decisions to make. If it truly embraces the notion of wellness and health, it must recognize that reduced consumption of its products as currently formulated would be a big step forward. It also must adhere to the maxim that you cannot have it all – our stomachs and our unwavering trust – for much longer.

The acquisition of TheWadeGroup (TWG) by Gibraltar Associates (GA) a little more than a year ago has been a win-win-win: a win for TWG, for GA and for our clients.

To borrow a quote from a living legend of public relations, Harold Burson, co-founder of Burson-Marsteller (BM), selling TWG to GA was “a little bit like watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Cadillac.” (The quote comes from a letter Mr. Burson wrote me when I left BM to run the Washington office of the fledgling Cohn & Wolfe, at the time owned by BM.) On the one hand, we were giving up something we cherished and had worked hard to build, but, more importantly, our two firms together would offer more to our clients than we could independently.

The move to GA was my sixth experience with mergers or other forms of change of ownership. Each time the experience had far less to do with improving client service than it had to do with “business.” But there is an exception to every rule, and the GA acquisition of TWG is the first of the mergers I experienced that was immediately beneficial to the customers. That’s ironic when you consider the mantra of business is: “It’s about the customer.” (A Google search of that phrase revealed more than 2 billion – that’s billion with a “b” – results.)

The merger has been beneficial because there were two companies dedicated to the same thing – making the lives of our clients easier – and because our two firms’ strengths were so perfectly complementary. TWG was a full-service public relations firm with a focus on public policy, issues and crisis management, strategic communications and corporate communications. GA is a full-service public relations firm known for strong media relations, smart strategy and a knack for leveraging social media to achieve traditional coverage and widespread awareness. The merged companies offer our customers a wider range of services, more senior-level experience, access to far more support resources and the same customer-first focus each firm has offered since before the merger.

So, while I really loved that old Cadillac, the good news is the new model provides all our customers the same great service and a broader range of communications options. In short, a win-win-win.

PRWeek reported last week that GA moved up 16 spots in its Agency Business Report to No. 85 across the U.S. and to No. 23 in the regional rankings (South). As the saying goes, success begets success.

To continue to provide our growing roster of clients with exceptional communications strategy and support, we are pleased to announce two new additions to our team of experienced communications professionals. Brian Wagner joins our Washington, D.C., team as a senior manager focusing on our defense, health care and technology clients. Rose Garbarino joins our Los Angeles team as a manager supporting our health care clients.

This growth comes on the heels of our announcement last month that PR veteran Hope Boonshaft has joined our team out in Los Angeles as executive vice president and general manager. Hope, Brian and Rose all share GA’s commitment to client service and bring unique talents and experience to the team that will support our clients’ success.

And we’re not done yet. After all, you don’t post double-digit revenue growth each year without a solid team in place. Stay tuned for future updates about GA’s growing team!

After this great match was made, I reflected on how and why this bit of serendipity unfolded. Hope is very much an entrepreneur and shares the same business and public relations principles that we practice here at GA. She isn’t afraid to think outside the box or to take a risk, and she realizes that best practices are about providing game-changing ideas, implementing them for clients and providing a strong, tangible return on their investment. 

I soon realized my own background paralleled many aspects of Hope’s – I began my career in the White House and transitioned to the corporate world to become head of public affairs at Dole Food Company. Hope had a similar experience beginning in the White House and going on to work for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Like me, she was hired to perform a government and public affairs function, and was later awarded the communications piece of the business. We both also practiced investor relations in our corporate roles and valued being able to integrate all of these disciplines to consistently achieve success for our companies.

All of us at GA are excited about Hope coming aboard and the opportunity it provides to build on past successes while also growing our practice areas within the LA office. Adding Hope’s world-class counsel to our current client offerings and expanding GA’s presence in other business areas based on her background – e.g., entertainment, technology, litigation communications, etc. – will no doubt prove to be an exciting chapter in GA history.

All of this just proves that getting out there and checking in with past and present colleagues can present untold opportunities for building businesses.

There are currently more U.S. Facebook users than people who voted in the 2008 election – and 50 percent of these users visit Facebook daily. What tactics should your business use to connect with them? For that answer I defer to Katie Harbath, associate manager for policy at Facebook. I saw her speak twice recently, first in January at WhatsNextDC and again in February at a Small Business Government Communicators Network event. During her presentations, Harbath, who is an authority on Facebook best practices, focused on four key elements of the social media platform: social, integration, engagement and measurement.

Some of my favorite tips and facts from her presentations include:

• Call to action – If you want to keep in contact with a user, send him/her to your Facebook page rather than a website. People are much more likely to “like” a page than to sign up for an email list.

• Encourage sharing – Every share on Facebook drives between two and five people back to your website. This can mean dozens, if not hundreds of extra eyes on your content.

• Make it social – There are many Facebook plugins and tools you can add to your website that allow for increased integration and engagement. For example, you can allow users to like news items within your site, or add a comment plugin and use Facebook as your registration tool.

• Strike a pose – Studies have shown photos are the best received content in news feeds, and photos of faces are especially effective. According to Harbath, infographics are also very popular in news feeds and result in increased engagement.

• It’s all about integration – As Harbath put it, “the best campaigns are integrated.” People are 60 percent more likely to recall an ad if they see it on both Facebook and television.

• Test creative – Before launching a new logo, brand, ad or video, use your Facebook fans as a focus group. Maybe if former Rep. Pete Hoekstra had tested his Super Bowl ad on Facebook he could have avoided this mess.

In addition to unveiling timeline, Facebook recently announced new advertising avenues that are sure to benefit brands. Facebook advertisers will now be able to distribute ads in three ways: the right-hand column (where they currently reside), in news feeds and in a log-out message. You can see the beta examples of log-out message advertising from Bing here.

Whether you’ve jumped on board with timeline or not, Facebook continues to be one of the most important online platforms for brands. Is your business making use of all it has to offer?

The proposals by well-intentioned advocates are numerous: a sugar tax on “junk food,” bans on marketing food to children, new labeling guidelines and reformed school lunch programs, just to name a few. Prominent writer and activist Raj Patel in a recently penned Atlantic Magazine piece even explores the idea of abolishing the food industry.

However, it’s clear that much difficult work remains to be done in simply generating consensus among all stakeholders about the meaning of the terminology we use when we talk about food, never mind considering the need for more rules to govern its production and consumption.

For example, “processed foods” are a common villain targeted by activists. But what exactly is a processed food? The basic definition designates any food that is deliberately changed before it is made available to eat, which includes even the healthiest of foods such as washed, frozen or canned vegetables. Under that definition, pasteurization, which makes foods such as milk and juice safer for consumption, is also considered “processed.” Even simple foods such as bread and popcorn qualify.

Clearly these are not the types of foods drawing the ire of food activists. And therein lies the rub: how do we define the types of processed foods that fall into the crosshairs of these proposals? Is it the number of ingredients that make a processed food bad? Or is it simply the nutritional value of the food? And how do you measure that nutritional value as part of an individual’s diet and lifestyle?

For food manufacturers on the other side of the table, the answers to these questions are not trivial.

The same sort of confusion colors efforts aimed at limiting sugar consumption, especially those targeting high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) found in sodas. From a biological standpoint, as noted by nutrition and public policy expert Marion Nestle on her Food Politics blog, sugar is sugar – no matter the source. Still, many HFCS critics largely ignore beet and cane (table) sugars, and often leave fruit juice sweeteners out of the discussion entirely. A regulation that would then tax a beverage based on sugar content may not only swallow up sodas, but also juices, whether or not they have added sweeteners.

Failure to take the time and effort necessary to thoroughly approach these types of complex issues has all too often led to misinformed and misguided regulations. An example is zoning restrictions on fast-food outlets. It has long been argued that proximity to fast-food restaurants contributes to obesity, and some urban areas have limited or prohibited such restaurants in their neighborhoods. Recent research indicates, however, that there is no scientific support for the idea that fast food is a significant cause of American obesity.

As you can see from the examples above, this important debate is being waged and important policy and consumer decisions are being considered without even a mutual understanding of the terms, let alone an acknowledgement of the facts. No matter your position on food-related issues, a smart, productive debate about the food products in question (and the science behind them) cannot be had until all stakeholders make a more concerted effort to help better frame the discussion using meaningful and agreeable terminology.

Driving public discourse and elevating important issues are two of public relations’ major roles, and high-decibel efforts to secure the high ground in the food debate are well underway. But to avoid half-baked public policies it is essential the food industry and food activists first engage stakeholders in real conversations that establish common ground on the basics.

This year’s batch of RQ scores is troubling to say the least. Less than 20 percent of those polled viewed corporations positively, and 60 percent felt corporate reputation had declined. The number of companies with “excellent” reputations, as determined by Harris, fell by half from last year. Financial services and banking companies came out of the survey badly bludgeoned; Bank of America, AIG, Berkshire Hathaway, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs suffered the worst drops in RQ scores on the entire list.

It should be noted that, historically, companies whose RQ score drops below 50 run a significant risk of being taken over by the government or going out of business. Bank of America, AIG and Goldman Sachs – the trinity that fall in this warning range – should consider the carnage of corporations that Harris found to have similarly abysmal RQ scores in the past, including infamous flameouts like Enron, MCI, WorldComm and Global Crossing, as well as mangled brands like Halliburton, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

What can be done about this and can the government help?

Whatever your politics, the Harris survey suggests Americans believe the government is inept at the bailout gig. Government – polling lower than tobacco, financial services and banking industries – ranks dead last in reputation with a whopping 76 percent negative rating.

Those who wish to restore the waning image of corporate America – and government for that matter– should look to Google and Apple, which top the Harris survey with the highest RQ scores. These companies derive their brand appeal from their undeniable ability to stir emotional appeal in consumers. How can we explain the fervor for Apple versus the vitriol for banks?

Our country’s greatest brands share common traits. Like Apple and Google, they hold emotional appeal for their consumers. Kodak is an example of a company that lost its way; however, it wasn’t when people stopped buying film, but when they forgot Kodak’s mission was always to help people capture memories.  Apple gets this. Does Goldman Sachs?

Great brands also buy into corporate social responsibility (CSR). For them, it is not a line item in the public relations budget – it’s in their DNA. For example, Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz made a bold and brilliant decision last year to sell wristbands in his stores to provide capital to American small businesses. “If banks wouldn’t do it,” he thought, “why can’t we?”

So why do we have such a pessimistic view of our nation’s companies? In the business of doing business, it would seem that many American companies have become devoid of a larger purpose and commitment to the public good. True, just about every company nowadays has some kind of flashy marketing campaign or a new CSR initiative. But the public, as evidenced from the survey, knows the difference between the real thing and a façade.

The rising RQ scores of auto companies, once so maligned, is proof that rebuilding a tarnished reputation is possible. In the age of social media, this feat has never been more possible. But the stakes are higher. Today’s consumer has instant access to abundant, raw information, and demands more from a company than simply a product. Emotional appeal, according to the Harris survey, stands alongside financial performance and products and services as key factors in overall RQ scores.

The brands that struggle in the marketplace of perception must do more to leverage social media, embrace CSR and offer a bigger vision of themselves in the world. They need to do more than simply make money. In the end, consumers want to buy more than just a product.

This year will mark our fifth anniversary. We owe our success and growth to our clients, first and foremost. Each year, they continue to reengage us, refer us to their colleagues and networks, and enable us to take on great assignments. Our engagements run the gamut: bringing bloggers to pineapple plantations in Costa Rica; rebranding the world’s top private security company; raising awareness about deadly food allergies; pushing to end overfishing subsidies; and creating a policy environment in which this country can have a broader discussion about HIV/AIDS.

The odds for small businesses surviving their first two years are quite low. Having five solid years under our belts is definitely an achievement, but it is just the beginning.

GA has now enjoyed four consecutive years of double-digit growth. The 22 professionals in D.C. and Los Angeles who embody this client-centric culture deserve a tip of the hat from both co-founder Tom Pernice and me.

We will, of course, be celebrating this news – along with our fifth birthday – in style. Stay tuned for more on that soon.

The witch hunt for FDA blood began long ago and, in recent memory, climaxed with spinach recalls, tales of poor (or no) inspections of overseas drug manufacturing plants or slow-motion approvals of medicines. This past year, the wave of drug shortages that hit the country has been a PR tsunami that has engulfed drug makers and the FDA; both have drawn the ire of a public that has lost faith in corporations and government to handle matters competently.

This crisis of confidence in American businesses and institutions is very real. The venerable Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient survey – the results of which were derived from a survey of 18,000 Americans – reveals that we now trust government less than the tobacco and banking industries. In fact, government ranks dead-last on the industry reputation list with only a 10 percent positive reputation rating.

Is it really that bad? Well, sometimes, yes. And it’s the self-inflicted wounds that seem most egregious. Just this week, an FDA advisory panel voted in favor of approving a new drug (which is actually a combination of two older drugs) that allegedly combats obesity. This epidemic is serious and pervasive, and should rightly command the attention of our government.

The problem, writes the Huffington Post’s Mark Hyman, is that drugs won’t solve what is actually a lifestyle problem. “The problem of chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, is not a medication deficiency, but a problem with what we put at the end of our fork,” he writes.

It’s true, in this case, that the FDA is just doing its job: approving drugs. But, so is First Lady Michele Obama with her admirable “Let’s Move” initiative, which is popularizing exercise and healthy eating with our children. One government voice tells us to swallow more kale while the other offers us a pill.

Having faith that the government or corporations are capable of handling matters competently requires us to believe what they are telling us. Tough to do when those messages compete with and contradict one another – as the Harris Interactive survey shows.

I will abstain from sharing my personal views on the substance of the topic. But I will go on the record to praise the approach that TEDxManhattan 2011 Fellow Stefani Bardin took to making her point. Some take to blogs; others, like Michael Pollan, put pen to paper and write the definitive works on the war between whole foods and processed foods. Ms. Bardin swallowed a camera the size of a pill that emitted images from her GI tract using Bluetooth. Voila. We have real, albeit gruesome footage of how processed food is digested in the body.

This little video has boomeranged all over the web. As of today it had more than 29,000 Facebook shares, 700 tweets and was emailed over 6,000 times. The YouTube video has over 1 million views.

Show, don’t tell; that is the old maxim for high school essay writers everywhere. It would seem that this can now be done without the aid of ink and quill. 

I recently finished reading the Walter Isaacson bio of Steve Jobs, and recall his account of an exchange between Jobs and President Obama several months ago. Over a dinner with other Silicon Valley executives, Jobs tells Obama that he’d like to manufacture more Apple products in the U.S., but that it is virtually impossible to do so: the Chinese have more mid-level engineers than we do, he tells the president.

The Washington Post covered this domestic brain-drain of the hi-tech labor force in great detail last month. These stories chronicle the major challenge facing would-be U.S. manufacturers. Put another way, we might be able to retain some of these jobs if we simply retain some highly trained, legal immigrants who would be willing to ply their trade here in the U.S. That, however, requires a visa extension. Enter politics.

Next week, at our offices in Washington, D.C., Gibraltar Associates will be hosting the sponsor of congressional legislation that would permit such visa extensions: Rep. Raul Labrador. We will also be joined by columnist John Fund. We are hoping that this discussion might help advance the debate about how to restore American manufacturing while tapping the talent of the thousands of highly educated immigrants living legally in the U.S. If you would like to join us, please RSVP via email here or visit our Facebook event page here.

I look forward to seeing you.

Unfortunately, in a world where even the local hot dog vendor is claiming leadership in his field and self-professed gurus are a dime a dozen, the word leadership has lost its meaning. It has, in fact, taken on the qualities of chewing gum – becoming common, pliable and quick to lose its flavor.

So how can you communicate your company’s leadership to the audiences who matter most to you? You can’t simply wedge the word leadership into your “About Us” language – you have to lead like you mean it. Here are a handful of key strategies to do just that:

Set a Course

You can’t be a leader if you don’t know where you want to go. It’s vital to establish a vision and make thoughtful choices that are consistent with that vision. Don’t get caught up in the crisis of the day or the trend of the week. Imagine your vision as due north on a compass. Keep the arrow pointed toward it and you’ll advance toward success; if you let your focus shift and spin to other directions, you’re stuck going nowhere.

Value Ideas

Sounds easy, right? Yet, throughout the business world, and particularly in the consulting sector, many still subscribe to the value system that says “time is money,” focusing on billing hours rather than advancing ideas. Some great ideas happen in an instant. Others are the result of significant time, energy and experimentation.  What’s clear is that great ideas are worth significantly more than the time it took to develop them, and the companies of the future are capitalizing on them – just ask Mark Zuckerberg.

Take Risks

Without challenging yourself and your organization, you’ll never know what you can achieve. Smart risk-taking is bold and intentional. It requires you to do your research, understand what’s at stake and what’s to be gained, and make a calculated decision to move forward. With an eye toward the vision you’ve established, focus on being right more than you are wrong and seizing opportunities to propel your company toward your vision of success.  

Expand Your Influence

Corporate leadership happens within the confines of your company’s walls, but it must extend beyond them, as well. Expand your influence by seeking opportunities to be involved as a leader within your industry and in the communities in which you operate. Whether you are launching a new corporate social responsibility initiative or serving on the board of a professional or trade association, your conscious choice to get involved and lead at a broader level will elevate your company’s profile and enable you to develop the relationships and trust that are essential to influence.    

Invest in the Future

Leadership is not just about what your stock prices look like today. Long-term growth relies on you investing in the future of your company. This may mean investing in advanced technology, piloting new internal initiatives or acquiring an entity with expertise and skills that can help advance your business. For us at Gibraltar Associates, it means investing in people and relationships. We do that by recruiting the best and the brightest, developing our team members and fostering a culture dedicated to comprehensive client service – all investments that continue to support our significant year over year growth.

These are strategies that work for us and for our clients. What works for you? How else do you lead like you mean it? Let us know in the comments.

It all started out with “S**t Girls Say - Episode 1”: pair a hilariously accurate parody (it’s funny because it’s true, right?) with some star power (Juliette Lewis) and – voila – a meme with a life of its own was born. Lines like, “Could you pass me that blanket?”, “What’s my password?” and “Twinsies!” led this three-episode video series to reach nearly 20 million collective views in just one month.

Then came…everyone else. “Stuff [insert gender, sexual orientation, race, occupation, etc., here] People Say” videos were popping up everywhere. After a barrage of posts, bloggers started to promise they would stop posting them – but then, oh one more! The videos were often clever, often funny and, most importantly, often shared. Nearly every relatively well-done “Stuff” video was able to capitalize on the already occurring YouTube searches and was shared across Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the like.

For example, a particularly GA-suited video, “Stuff PR People Say,” created by Hunter Public Relations (“Soooo I just made a few tweaks” – does that sound familiar?), had thousands of views within a couple hours. Hunter succeeded with this video (currently at more than 47,000 views) because they knew their audience, created the video before the meme died, and it was actually funny!

Other groups used the hilarious meme to gain awareness for more serious issues, however – and, quite successfully. Lambda Legal, the nation's oldest and largest legal organization working for the civil rights of the LGBT community, produced “Sh**t Homophobic People Say.” The video spliced together public statements that showcase the talking points of their opposition, raising interest in their issue. In five days the video had received more than 1.1 million views.

So – if you’re going to capitalize on a meme, be early and be smart. Your goal is to become a member of the “How clever!” camp, rather than the “Aww, they tried” one.

I would like to welcome Ali McSherry, our newest addition to the Gibraltar team. I have no doubt that our clients and colleagues will benefit from her experience and way of thinking.

We greatly value the contributions each team member makes to the success of our client’s goals and to our firm. Everyone on our team consistently produces bold work that makes a difference and we all celebrate in that success.  We are tremendously proud. 

Well deserved congratulations all around,

Thomas J. Pernice, Chairman, GA

By Britt Beringer

I hopped on the Twitter bus about three years ago, mostly because a close friend was tweeting updates about his adventures as a professional cyclist. I just couldn’t get behind it at first. I don’t lead a rockstar lifestyle, so who was going to care about my college class woes or rants about Colonial Williamsburg tourists? I think I tweeted once in the year after I opened my account.

Then, I began to notice some interesting faces interacting online. All of a sudden I could “follow” the White House on Twitter or “friend” President Obama on Facebook. These were not the usual reality TV stars or one-hit wonders that generally plagued my social media experience. These were outlets from whom I actually wanted to hear and were forced to operate within a framework that is accessible. Twitter restricts users to 140 characters, thereby curtailing politicians’ innate need to ramble. Excessive text on a Facebook page looks cluttered and bookish, often warding off readers entirely.

In an age where people crave information instantaneously, politicians especially needed to find a medium to express themselves in a compact and accessible way. What’s more, voters can express themselves right back. By @tweeting someone, you can call their attention to comments or questions, which has been particularly successful in town-hall-style settings. Reporters or spokespeople can tweet updates, and then respond to questions they receive in return. In the meantime, bystanders can monitor the entire transaction, and in the process learn more about their favorite candidates or most-dreaded policy changes.

All in all, social media creates the modern day sound bite; a moment in time that can rally activists and move agendas forward.

By Chris Bowma n 

With the advent of social media, PR agencies have adjusted their strategies, tactics and outlooks to include and adapt to this new form of communication. Another technological shift deserving PR agencies’ attention is the rise of citizen journalism.

Citizen journalism is a recent phenomenon that enables Internet users to report and write their own stories on subjects they deem newsworthy. These stories can be posted or submitted to a variety of sites, including blogs, CNN’s iReport, Wikinews or Allvoices, and were instrumental in catapulting Al Jazeera to the forefront of coverage surrounding the Middle Eastern revolutions. Just as there is a range of websites accepting and promoting citizen journalism, there are varying policies from sites regarding filtering or censoring, posting and using others’ material.

Social media and citizen journalism often work in concert. Social media can amplify stories from citizen journalists through posting and tweeting stories that users find significant; or, people can post dramatic pictures from events and provide live coverage via instant updates through social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. Those chronicling events online take on the role of citizen journalists, providing snapshot updates. Many articles covering the democratic revolutions in the Middle East have highlighted the widespread use of social media to not only organize protestors but then to provide live, in-person coverage of events in real-time.

This raw, first-hand account of the news is certainly one benefit of citizen journalism. Many believe that first-hand reporting provides a more realistic account of what’s really happening, rather than an edited and processed retelling via a removed third-party newscaster or professional journalist.

Others stress its ability to stimulate and foster communities with common interests. Citizen journalism, many propose, also forces its contributors to think objectively and to place their event in greater context to interest readers. This expands their own vision of the topic they’re covering. It can also be used to highlight issues that may not be covered in the typical press.

Citizen journalism is not without critics, however. Though it often provides reliable accounts from those experiencing an event first-hand, it can also feature trivial or unreliable content. Because there is little (or no)editorial oversight, citizen journalists may mislead readers in their own work or may validate inaccurate or misreported information and news.

A recent event that revealed some of the holes in citizen journalism was the tweeting of a fake though official-looking sign that was seen in front of a McDonald’s. The sign explained to patrons that, due to a string of recent area robberies, an additional tax would be charged to this McDonald’s African American customers. The sign was exposed as a fraudulent hoax, and McDonald’s employed a variety of social media tools to prevent the fake sign from becoming a PR disaster. The sign received serious mainstream media coverage, but, fortunately for McDonald’s, it was acknowledged as the work of an independent actor, not as an official policy of the fast-food company.

The burgeoning area of citizen journalism and its interplay with social media has the potential to be a powerful tool for PR agencies and their clients. But, in the wrong hands, it has the ability to severely damage brands and reputations.

Veronica personifies the age-old saying “the best and brightest.” Gibraltar Associates is committed to recruiting and hiring top-notch PR pros, and Veronica is the perfect example. Let me tell you why I’m especially tickled.

Veronica was recently named as a finalist for the Washington Women in Public Relations (WWPR) 2011 Emerging Leaders Awards. The award highlights candidates’ achievements and their potential to contribute their leadership to the industry for many years to come. Winners of the 2011 Emerging Leaders Award will be announced July 26, and I can assure you that we will be there in full force to root her on.

Veronica is not just really great at her job, she lives an interesting life. She’s highly involved in the DC PR and social media scenes, captains an ultimate Frisbee team and serves as a mentor to sophomores at the Capital City Public Charter School. This California girl can also climb a rock wall… while blindfolded. She’s fearless. 

We are thrilled to be adding a team member of Veronica’s caliber, and we are excited to continue growing our team – and our business – in ways that foster excellence in our unconventional agency. Growth is expected. It’s how we grow that keeps it interesting. 

By John Edgington

Jim Lake, President and Partner at Gibraltar Associates, wasn’t born with a burning desire to become a PR executive. In fact, like many of us, he switched his major in college; after a brief stint with political science and business administration, he finally decided on economics.  Also, like many of us, he had a few jobs (political and governmental) before starting his career in public relations and public affairs. 

Instead of viewing his lack of attachment to one single industry as an impediment to future success, Lake decided instead to pursue opportunities where they presented themselves, letting each success build on the one before it. 

Lake found his way to public relations after working through both the Reagan and Bush I administrations at the U.S. Department of Commerce.  Although initially unsure if “this was what I wanted to do in the long-term,” he quickly realized that politics, government and public relations/affairs had a lot in common. 

“Politics and PR are very similar,” he said.  “Politics is selling a political idea or platform versus PR where you’re selling a product or service.” 

After a few years in the industry, Lake’s institutional knowledge of government lent itself more towards public affairs, something that still rings true today.  Although very similar to public relations, Lake is able to draw a simple distinction: “PR is selling products or ideas,” Lake explained,  “while public affairs revolves around issues management and issue advocacy, helping someone get their voice heard.”

This skill-set has also made the gap between government agencies and public affairs an easy one to bridge. For Lake, the relationship boils down to a few key factors: “It’s about information sharing,” he explained. “What are the benefits you have to provide, and how do we communicate that?”

Whether it’s through working with partner groups or accessing people directly, Lake said, “public education is what we do.”

For Lake, an effective public affairs practitioner doesn’t need a particular resume or specific background, but what they do need is a specific mindset. “It’s important to ask yourself and/or your client, what is success to you, what’s the end goal?” said Lake.  To be effective, one must be “aggressive, well-connected and have the ability to assess the problem at hand and offer a strategic plan for success.”

Getting smart on the issues is also key to being effective. “Decisions are built off research,” he explained. “What is the problem, what does success look like, and how do we get there?”

By Brittany Beringer

GA Vice President and Partner John Procter “stumbled into PR,” as he put it. After studying international relations at George Washington University, Procter planned on entering the Foreign Service. Instead, he took a job at a boutique firm in Alexandria. “It was a lot of fun and gave me the opportunity to work in communications and advocacy, as well as some international projects,” he said.

In 2004, Procter spent seven months in Baghdad working in media relations for the Department of Defense. “At the time, Iraq was the biggest story in the world,” he recalled, which allowed for the chance to interact with the top journalists in the world. Procter completed his tour and returned to Washington, where he finished the year at the Pentagon. “But I missed being in the thick of it,” Procter admitted. “You learn and experience different things on the ground than you do from the outside.”

Procter started at Gibraltar Associates in 2007, just a few weeks after the company opened its doors. Then, he was named a partner in April 2011. He works on several accounts, specifically those pertaining to media relations, corporate public affairs and issue advocacy.

Having done work in over 20 countries on five continents, Procter’s extensive experience with public relations on an international level is substantial. “A client’s greatest challenge might be tied to market access or an international regulatory issue,” Procter said. “Our job is to help them navigate and evolve.” As economies around the world transition from more restrictive markets towards economic growth and liberalization (or, conversely, regress to a more controlled situation), successful PR firms will learn how to help their clients find a secure and relevant place in this process.

“It is crucial for [a firm] to know and understand the market they need to influence,” Procter remarked. “Every international audience is a little different, every market is unique.” In order to thrive, PR professionals must identify which platforms, and which publications, see widespread circulation, but more importantly, which voices and publications can be trusted.”

Procter feels that experience and innovation allow GA to work well with international clients. According to Procter, social media is less influential in other countries than in the United States. He points out that Brazil, as well as many countries in Asia (Japan, Korea and China) have their own versions of Facebook. “Both Facebook and Twitter seem to be a Western phenomenon,” he noted. Research seems to support his claim, as over 50 percent of tweets are in English.

“The most important thing,” Procter recommended, “is to identify how your audience is communicating. How are they complaining? How do they interact?”

The United States is in the fortunate position of a more mature public relations and communication environment. This, in turn, allows globally minded American firms to propose unique approaches that seem unusual and attractive to foreign clients. “We work to maintain momentum because that’s what keeps the attention of the media,” said Procter. “It has to be interesting, provocative and moving.”