After completing my accreditation in public relations (APR) recently, a number of people said to me that they would find the oral part of the exam, where they question you about current events, the most challenging. (After a year-long process, you write for 3.5 hours then you have an oral exam for an hour where you’re expected to be on top of any event thrown at you so that you can provide communications advice.)

For example some of the issues I was asked about were Envision Edmonton’s petition and former Col. Russell Williams’ murder case and my study partner was asked about the mosque near Ground Zero.

I too find it challenging to keep up with everything but like many communicators nowadays, I rely on Twitter and the awesome technology of RSS to keep on top of things by subscribing to search queries, blogs and media outlets. Right now, I have 109 feeds in Google Reader that I go through each weekday.

In Edmonton, we’re very fortunate to have people like Jeff Samsonow (@journalistjeff) who hosts a blog called the Edmontonian. While some of the site may have content that you may not want to read at work (they warn you when that’s the case because you will laugh at loud and if anyone asks, you likely won’t want to share what you were reading). But the reason why I bring this site up is that they also post some of the top headlines from the major media outlets from Monday to Friday. (see last Friday’s) It’s an easy way to get a daily glimpse of the news.

The site also recently secured a show on Shaw TV called the Edmontonian Presents, which will start next month. They are looking for submissions on the three themes for their upcoming episodes on “Firsts,” “Money” and “Spring.” If you have any thoughts, drop them a line.

But first, subscribe to their RSS feed…

“If you want to change a system, the most powerful way is by questioning the paradigms behind it.” Bud Cadell

After I wrote questioning whether PR’s RACE formula was outdated, I was chatting with a PR colleague about the feedback that I received – it was like I told PR practitioners that they had an ugly baby.

In October, I came across this blog through Twitter when blogger Julien Smith posted “If you aren’t reading this Marshall McLuhan blog, you can’t really understand media, sorry.”

My own interest with McLuhan started as a child when I first saw the Historica Heritage Moments on the CBC. Watching the video will bring you back.

So how is Marshall McLuhan relevant today?

Well, even though McLuhan died in 1980, his words and thoughts are still in many best selling books, like a couple I picked up earlier this year including Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith and The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.

It was in 2004, when I started my MA at the U of A that I became more immersed in many things McLuhan, including his famous Playboy interview, his appearance in the 1977 Woody Allen and Diane Keaton movie Annie Hall (YouTube clip), or the late-1960s TV program “Laugh-In” with Goldie Hawn and Henry Gibson reciting “Marshall McLuhan, what are ya doin’?”

In Hinton’s blog, he also talks about the celebrity of McLuhan, “In 1965 anyone who watched TV, read a magazine or looked at a newspaper had heard of Marshall McLuhan.“ Pretty amazing, but not surprising given the depth in most of McLuhan’s words.

I was recently reading the convocation speech that McLuhan gave at the University of Alberta in 1971 after receiving an honorary degree. Consider words like these and remember they were written in 1971:

“Electric information has now become as indispensable to people as water to fish, but people cannot yet accommodate to this rarefied environment.”

Anyone involved in communications should be aware of Marshall McLuhan, but it also hits home in a literal sense because one of the 1960s most famous cultural icons was born in Edmonton in 1911.

In 2007, when CPRS Edmonton hosted the national conference themed Fast Forward, we used McLuhan’s words in a promotional piece and screensaver:

“I think of western skies as one of the most beautiful things about the West, and western horizons. The Westerner doesn’t have a point of view. He has a vast panorama…”

Next year, the University of Alberta and the City of Edmonton will be hosting one of many international celebrations for the McLuhan Centenary. Read more about it on page 20 of CURB Magazine below.

Also be sure to check out Todd Babiak’s article “Media guru’s Highlands childhood home well worth preserving.” (Edmonton Journal, September 25, 2010)

Feminism with pole dancing

Years ago, a boss asked me if I was a feminist, to which I quickly responded, “God no!” I didn’t burn bras and didn’t live my life just for the sake of being rebellious.

Recently a highly educated, well-experienced PR colleague made the choice to be a stay-at-home mom. She was struggling with her decision.  The “feminist” in her struggled with her dependency on her husband. Truth be told she has the ability to change her situation anytime because she’s educated and continues to remain relevant by teaching part-time university classes. She has options and she made a choice. Other people have other options and they make their choices based on them.

Feminism is not outdated, but it has evolved both in action and perception. Feminism is not about rebellion, it’s about choices.

After finishing an intense year of studying, a friend and I started a pole dancing class. While pole dancing may not seem an obvious choice for a feminist, I love dancing and I love challenging myself. It’s a physical activity just like any other, but obviously people have their ideas about the type of people who do the activity. It really doesn’t matter though because for me it pushes me to do something I didn’t think I could or would. (Plus I discovered I really love doing that head flip back hair toss thing. You don’t know until you try it. )

The link to PR

So what does this have to do with PR? Well like pole dancing, people have ideas about what public relations is. As PR practitioners, we’ve been taught that our profession revolves around the RACE formula: research, followed by analysis, communication, then evaluation.

In studying for a recent exam, a PR colleague and I were chatting about the RACE formula because a big chunk of our exam was based on it.

Problem was that while we both considered ourselves successful in our respective communications careers, RACE couldn’t be in applied in its purest form. It was similar to my discomfort with the word feminism – I didn’t fit based on what I thought it was or what was expected.

The night before my exam, I Googled to see if there was anything out there about the RACE formula being outdated. There isn’t much out there but I did find a recent reference in a McGill blog from a colleague at the Québec chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society.

I could go on for days about how I think a system created for mass communication doesn’t  fit in an environment where there is little time, little control and everyone wants to be heard.  At this point, I don’t know if the entire concept is outdated or if it can be evolved.  In challenging a concept that was established in 1963 by respected PR practitioner John Marston, I thought I’d start exploring at the source.

After reading the preface by John Marston in The Nature of Public Relations (1963) I’m already intrigued. It starts…

“The occupation known today as “public relations” concerns itself basically with what groups of men think and why they think it.”

To be continued…

In mid-March I had the opportunity to attend the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association (AMPA) conference with some colleagues. It’s the fourth year that we attend for our magazine techlife.

Given my previous role, my interest is directed to the web and social media. In time since we’ve launched our magazine website, we’ve incorporated a number of social media tools – the most recent being our YouTube channel in April 2008.

Full magazine online?

The question that I always find interesting though is whether magazines should have full digital editions as we do or in a PDF, Flash or whatever format.  A couple of the companies that sell these types of tools including Baxter and Texterity have presented as past conferences but still the argument comes up all the time that people don’t read the same online as they would in print. Some people however are disappointed when they can’t find an exact version online of what they found in your magazine to forward to a friend for example. Also, it does make it easier when we can forward a link to a page as opposed to sending a whole document, but then that’s more about us than the reader.

Regardless, a few thoughts from a couple presentations.

Mention the URL

In a Thursday evening session with magazine specialist from New York Ina Saltz and Patrick Walsh of Outdoor Canada, they were asked what the biggest opportunities that magazines were missing out on.

The web was one of the answers that came out. All magazines should have their website listed on their cover, spine and in the folio.

Magazines and social media

The next day Rhett Soveran of WestJet’s up! Magazine and David Guzman of MindShare Inc. presented Working for the Web. WestJet’s magazine is managed through contractor RedPoint Media, which is why WestJet and up! Magazine have separate presences through social media. Some of their key points:

• Consider the first person for the web
• Bring more different angles to the same story
• 200-500 words maximum
• Technology is almost as important to content, but content is king
• Take a screen shot of your website and blur it out to see where the eye is drawn (in some pubs, it’s the ads)
• Keep learning, good content brings the reader

They also touched on social media and that many people come to their stories because of social media. It was interesting because another well established magazine said that they still have not been able to successfully make the argument for social media. The editor still considers it frivolous. The answer to that, do it anyway and show them the stats.

When we found out who our next Guest Chef in Residence was going to be (“Canada’s Gordon Ramsay”: Chef David Adjey from Restaurant Makeover),  we knew we wanted to do something different in terms of social media, in addition to the traditional media we were inviting. Unlike with the launch with Chef Rob Feenie, this time the chef’s name wasn’t kept a secret and we weren’t planning a big traditional media blitz as we’d done for the launch.
At first, the thought of streaming a classroom session to the web (like a reality TV show) was tossed around, but reality was that no one on our team really had the time to coordinate it. And for all that work, we had no idea how many people would be inclined to tune in during a regular work day.

The idea to do an evening “Date with Chef David Adjey” came as a result of a couple important factors:

1. Many of the local food bloggers meet occasionally because local food blogger Sharon Yeo (Only here for the food) started organizing “foodie meetups.” (I’ve personally attended a few.)
2. Many of the local bloggers have day jobs, so an evening event had a better chance.

Once we decided that what we were going to do, we thought we’d also incorporate a few other elements to make this event a little more social.

1. Use OpenTable.com to make the reservation with the bloggers.
2. Invite others to participate by asking questions via Twitter (with the possibility of winning a prize if a question was asked).
3. Film the entire date (using our professional video service) to post a video (uncut, but not unedited) on our YouTube channel, which allows us up to an hour on our “EDU channel.”

At the last minute, I also decided to grab my handheld video camera to create a teaser video for the date when I went down to meet David Adjey for the first time.

Here are the results of the “Date with David”:

1. OpenTable: While I love this service, I had hoped that the reminder emails for the reservation would go to all my attendees. The service only sent the reminder to me though. There really should be a “checkbox” option for it to allow reminders to your attendees as well. I had also hoped that the “how was your visit” email after the event would do that same, because who else is going to write such a detailed review of your food and service but a food blogger? Unfortunately it didn’t.
2. Twitter: This part actually worked fairly well with a dozen people sending questions (some sent many questions). We also had many people re-tweeting the date and making general comments about it and Chef Adjey’s visit to NAIT. (in addition to the NAIT Radio and Television and Culinary Arts students tweeting and Facebooking)
3. YouTube: This part was by far the most fun but also the most stressful. There were two reasons for that including the fact that the date went almost ½ an hour longer than expected (our YouTube channel has an hour limit) and our subject for the date said things that could not be posted. (Just a little more TV personality than serious chef in the omitted comments and stories.) Here’s what we ended up with (37 minutes in length).

Here’s the blog roll of attendees:
Brooke, Bruce, Cathy, Chris, Isabelle, Mack, Maki, Marianne, Nikki, Sharon, Twyla and Valerie

The lesson learned in all of this is be careful what you promise. I’m pleased with the video that resulted but it wasn’t what we said it would be, because it couldn’t be.
Follow through is a quality I value in people, so although I find it disappointing that I couldn’t completely follow through on my own statement, I’m happy with the experiment overall . Plus now I have a whole bunch of blog posts out there with my name in them with some keywords that came out in some stories that I could have never imagined would ever be out there.

Here’s what David thought of the date:

I would do it again, of course learning from this. In addition to promoting the value of the chef’s expertise and our culinary program, the wildcard that I didn’t properly account for in this instance (in my being able to deliver the final product) was the TV personality.
Special thanks to everyone involved including Chef David Adjey, the bloggers and of course all of the NAIT staff who supported the idea and took part.

People usually think of YouTube as an opportunity to communicate with the masses. Because the tool is so easy to use and so easily accessible, it also can be very powerful when you want to connect with an audience of one.

On Friday, NAIT had a pep rally for curling team Kevin Martin. Not only are players Kevin Martin and Adam Enright NAIT alums, but coach Jules Owchar has been coaching at NAIT for over 40 years.  (Amazing how many friends you can make in that time. ☺)

My colleague Ruth Juliebo was tasked with putting together a pep rally and creating a video with another colleague (Kim Brix) in a very short period of time. It wasn’t easy, but they turned around a great message that we understand the team watched more than once the night before they won their Olympic gold medal. It really doesn’t matter how many people watch the video, it was really about making sure the team (especially coach Owchar) knew that his NAIT family was behind him.

Mayor Mandel was present at the pep rally and delivered a message about whether or not they came home with the gold we’d like them just as much anyway.

Of course we would, that’s the Canadian way, but the end of this very exciting Olympic journey ended with a gold medal.

Congrats to all involved, but a special congrats to Jules Owchar. It took over 40 years but what a fantastic accomplishment for a great career!

(And, fantastic job on the video Ruth and Kim!)

Later this week, I am fortunate enough to be heading to the Olympics in Vancouver. It’s been a lifelong dream to actually experience the games first-hand.

For me, the Olympics don’t keep me interested because of the politics or the controversies. It’s about the people who dedicate their lives for a chance at glory. I absolutely love those stories and experiencing the emotion in real-time.

The emotions that games evoke are strong – and fortunately can be relived infinitely through social media.

Fifty-year member of the Canadian Public Relations Society Don LaBelle, APR, FCPRS shares a story from a fundraising gala in ‘76 for the ’78 Commonwealth Games. His committee brought in the top three runners from the four minute mile at the ’54 Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, including Roger Bannister.

Hear Don’s story: (keep in mind the crowd’s reaction was some 20+ years after the four minute mile)

If you’re not familiar with the run, watch this video first.

Stories from athletes around the world are great, but seriously GO CANADA!

Some PR practitioners have been turned off of Twitter because of all its “useless information” or have complained that Twitter’s audience is too small to have an effect on their communications campaigns.

Reality is that much of the value can be found in applications that are built to support and share Twitter’s data. One such local tool is ShareEdmonton.ca.

ShareEdmonton was built and launched in October 2009 by local blogger Mack Male. Basically it’s a free events calendar that also aggregates information about your event from Twitter.

While it’s still a relatively new tool, it’s already gone through a series of improvements to make the information about events more user-friendly.

ShareEdmonton is a perfect tool to add to any public event communications planning.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Go to shareedmonton.ca.
2. Click “Events” in top header.
3. Click “Add your event” in the far right column. (You can also email events to mack@paramagnus.com)
4. When filling out the form, make sure to include any relevant tag words (way that Twitter posts come up related to your event)
5. All event posts are moderated so you will have to wait to see it come up after you submit it.

Tips on posting to ShareEdmonton

• Use a URL shortener link (ex. http://cli.gs) for your links on your ShareEdmonton event page so that you’ll know how much traffic came from ShareEdmonton because it tracks click throughs.
• Using a vanity URL – where you choose the keywords in the shortened URL – is also a good idea, so that people can remember your link from memory. It’s also more attractive in the post. (This can be done on Cli.gs by selecting “Edit” after you’ve shortened your URL) Ex. http://cli.gs/NAITBondar
• Create an event hashtag (keyword with # preceding it) and include it on your event posting and in the tags so that you know when others are talking about your event because the Twitter posts will appear below your ShareEdmonton event. Ex. #NAITChef
• Include #yeg (Edmonton airport code) in tweets so that people know the posts are related Edmonton and show up on ShareEdmonton’s front page in the “Recent #yeg” box (right column).
• Connect ShareEdmonton to your Facebook account (top right corner icon on ShareEdmonton) to also share your event with friends.
• Follow @ShareEdmonton and @mastermaq on Twitter to hear about updates to the website.

Benefits of using ShareEdmonton

• You’re expanding your reach well beyond your current Twitter followers.
• When planning your event, you’ll also know what you’re competing with locally, which just helps to make your job that much easier. (Something we all need!)

Related

• State of the Edmonton & Calgary Twitterspheres (usage statistics)

Originally posted in CPRS Edmonton members’ only blog February 4, 2010

Last year when I had the chance to meet Brian Solis at the CPRS National Conference I brought up the fact that like many PR practitioners, I constantly refer people to his conversation prism and that I thought the foreword he wrote for Deirdre Breakenridge’s PR 2.0 captured in three and a half pages the best way to describe what social media has done PR in its 100+ year history.

I highly recommend the entire book, but here’s a brief summary of the key points from the foreword.

Two key players are attributed with creating public relations just over 100 years ago – Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays.

After an accident at the Pennsylvania Railroad, Ivy Lee created the first press release because he believed PR was a “two way street” in that companies had a responsibility to inform their audiences.

Sigmund Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays was PR’s first theorist who based his approach on people’s irrational and unconscious motives.

For decades following, the work of these two individuals shaped public relations, and somewhere along the way the industry lost its vision – leading into “hype, spin, hyperbole, and buzzwords.”

Enter social media and PR moves from companies marketing at audiences to humanizing conversations with people. It was a return to “two way conversations” by forcing PR to stop broadcasting and to begin a dialogue.

The term PR 2.0 has been around since the 1990s, before web 2.0 was coined. It’s not about the technology – it’s a philosophy that changes the game by getting organizations engaging with people on a level playing field.

In the end it’s a renaissance that brings the public back in public relations. (also the title of Solis’ new book)