St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a fine, public liberal arts institution, faced a big problem. Mold sickened students and displaced 250 of them from their dorm rooms. What did the college do? It found a cruise ship to provide temporary housing while they remediate the mold problem.
In a recent post, web PR and marketing guru, David Meermon Scott complained about the use of gobbledygook,which distances organizations from their customers, and urged his readers to start speaking in plain language. The biggest perpetrators of goobledygook are the people who should know better: professional communicators.
In America today, there is a writing crisis. Too many people cannot put together a coherent paragraph or a cogent email. Our digital world requires MORE writing not less. Among all of our presentation skills, writing is the most critical.
With all the means we have to communicate today, sadly it seems we understand each other less. Recently, there was a sprited discussion on Linked In’s Public Relations and Communications Professionals Group, triggered by an article in Forbes, entitled, Young people stop just Texting me and Give me a Call once in a while, PLZ!
At The Communications Network conference last week in Boston, there many valuable and practical insights into how to build better communications planning around philanthropy and social change. But what was most valuable to me were the provocative questions and inspiring stories that so many of the speakers provided.
These days when you have a pleasant experience with any company, it’s almost a shock rather than the norm. Often times, there is a huge disconnect between what the advertising messages say about the company and what the company actually delivers.
A few months ago, there were predictions that the world would end (thankfully it did not). Then this past week, came the earthquake and now Hurricane Irene. To be sure these are scary and dangerous events but they are made scarier by the hype of the media. Watching the coverage of Hurricane Irene , one can’t help but feel like the world as we know it is going to end.
In this day of smartphones, 140 character messages, if your marketing message doesn't get to the point right off the bat, you risk losing your audience. Too many people, as journalists like to say, bury their lead. In other words, people begin their communications in the middle with the details, the facts and then eventually get to the point.
Were William Shakespeare to come back today, he might find it oddly amusing the care and marketing attention companies and organizations pay to find the right name. Companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours coming up with THE name–one that will help them earn big bucks, cement customer loyalty, get them attention and, in many cases, reinvigorate their brand.
Last week, I was talking with a few nonprofit executives about communications issues they face and what kind of training in communications would be most useful to them if it were available. A huge issue, not surprisingly, is time and resources to undertake communications programs.
