Posts Tagged ‘Indiana public relations agency’

Okay, I had to get a chuckle out of this article by Jessica Malnik. It’s pretty much spot on. Every generation has certain items and events that pinpoint what decade they grew up in. Here’s some of her list of the things people who grew up in the ’90s know how to do that is now obsolete. (And some of my comments in parentheses … How many others can you think of?)

1. How to save a file on a floppy disc
2. The Dewey Decimal System
3. Dial-Up Internet (Oh, the sound of the dial tone while waiting for AOL to connect …)
4. How to record something on a VHS tape (I still have a box full of VHS tapes – I wonder if I’ll ever get the chance to watch them again.)
5. When all you could do on a cell phone was talk
6. Walkmans (I know I still have mine SOMEWHERE.)
7. How to place a collect call (A what?)
8. How to find your way using only a map and no GPS (With my Garmin, I really don’t know how to live without it now.)
9. Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? (LOL.)
10. How to write in cursive (The fact that schools are getting rid of this is madness!)
11. Just how awesome the original “Double Dare” and “Legends of Hidden Temple” TV shows were (and how awesome ‘90s Nickelodeon shows were in general). (YES!!)
12. The secrets to collecting the best Beanie Babies and POGs
13. How to entertain yourself without YouTube videos
14. How to send a fax (I just made a comment about that the other day – Does anyone still send them?)
15. How to survive high school without Facebook (Yes, it IS possible.)

By Tim Coulon, Vice President Creative, Coles Marketing Communications

When it comes to shooting photos for business purposes, pictures often really are worth a thousand words. But based on the quality of photographs encountered in newsletters, brochures and even advertisements, many companies are speaking to their customers in tongues.

Professional photographers produce the finest pictures, but there isn’t always the time and budget to hire one. Point-and-shoot cameras can often fill the void for simple day-to-day business purposes, and more people are carrying smartphones that can take high-resolution photos.

The problem is the business people wielding these cameras make many common mistakes, resulting in pictures that are out of focus, badly composed or over-exposed by flash. Fortunately, most of these issues can be corrected with the following advice, plus a little bit of practice!

• Don’t be afraid of retakes. The great thing about digital cameras is there’s no film to waste. The first picture you take probably isn’t the best one. Take four or five photos, and weed through them on your computer for the best one.
• Always shoot on your camera’s highest resolution setting. You can decide later to shrink a photo down, but you can’t improve a low-res picture once it’s taken.
• Don’t take the name “point-and-shoot” too literally! Many people assume wherever they happen to be standing is the best place to take a picture. Walk around your subject, looking for the best angle and lighting.
• Avoid leaving too much space around what you’re shooting. Move in or zoom in until you’re framed fairly tightly around your subject.
• Watch out for distracting objects or people in the background. You don’t want to take a portrait of your CEO with an “Exit” sign right over his/her head!
• Excess motion can result in blurry or bad photos. Anchor your body when you’re ready to shoot. Press the shutter button smoothly — don’t stab or jerk the camera. It might even be a good idea to hold your breath.
• Avoid shooting a person straight on, looking directly into the camera. They will look stiff and uncomfortable. Have them turn their body at a slight angle and swivel their head toward the camera for a more natural, candid look.
• You can even have your portrait subject looking away from the camera. If you do this, frame them slightly off-center and include more of the area in the direction they’re looking. This “look space” effect results in great environmental portraits.
• Don’t stand someone up against a wall to take their picture. It will resemble a police mug shot and create a shadow halo around their head.
• Use your point-and-shoot’s autofocus function wisely. Most digital cameras allow you to press the shutter button halfway to set the focus. You can then move the camera around to change or improve the composition. Aim first at what you want to be in focus, press the button halfway to lock it in, and move around until you like what you see. Then press the shutter the rest of the way to take the shot.
• Focusing with a smartphone camera is a little different. On most smartphones, you can tap the screen on the object you want to focus on. Then press the shutter button to take the picture. Otherwise it will just focus on whatever is in the center of your screen.
• Smartphone cameras have a wider aspect ratio than regular cameras, resulting in a long, skinny image. Avoid holding the phone upright while taking a picture, unless you’re photographing something tall like a building or a basketball player.
• Your camera’s flash function is best when used about five or six feet away from your subject. If you’re too close, they’ll be blasted with light and washed out. If they’re more than 10 feet away, the flash won’t reach them. Try to use natural light whenever possible.
• If you’re photographing outdoors, bright sunny days aren’t the best choice. Shoot on an overcast day or in the shade for the best effects.

Looking for experts behind the lens? Check out what photography services Coles has to offer!

We’re back from the holidays and, as a PR/marketing professional, diving head first back into one of the most stressful jobs of 2012, according to CareerCast. You might already be

planning some coveted vacation time. Not only is it a time to relax and refresh, but according to recent research, it gets your creativity juices flowing.

A 2011 IBM global survey of CEOs found that creativity was regarded as the “most crucial factor for future success” in a “highly volatile, increasingly complex business environment.”

In his article, Seth Schulman offers some simple suggestions for structuring your next vacation to maximize your own creative development:

• Use time away to catch up on sleep. Most of us don’t get enough of it, and it’s essential for performing creative tasks well.
• Create psychological distance from work. It’s tempting to keep our smartphones on, even if we travel to another country. Unfortunately, that might damage our ability to replenish our creative stores. Several studies have shown that just thinking about things distant from the here and now can enhance creativity.
• Vacation with people you love. When participants in one study were “primed with thoughts of love,” they grew more creative. On the other hand, they became less creative “when primed with carnal desire.” (I’ll leave it to you to figure out what to do with that…)
• Read something crazy. Those of us who like to read might be tempted to choose the latest business book or a title that otherwise bears directly on our work. Think again: Research has found that reading absurd stories by Kafka increased the ability to recognize hidden patterns. Apparently, absurdity forces our minds to work harder to make meaning out of what we encounter, thus enhancing our creative skills.
• Play games — especially video games. Believe it or not, a recent study has found that playing video games makes kids more creative.
• Spend time with your kids. If you spend time interacting with children, you might find yourself more inclined to think like them. And one study has found that just thinking about life from the point of view of our 7-year-old selves improves our creative performance.

And when your vacation is over, plan a mindful re-entry into work. Come up with a plan to deal with the onslaught of post-vacation emails and other work, so that the effect of the stress doesn’t sap up all the creative energies you’ve had so much fun unleashing during your time off.

Yet again, CareerCast has listed PR as one of “The 10 Most Stressful Jobs of 2012.” Are you surprised? Ahead of PR were enlisted soldier, firefighter, airline pilot, military general and

police officer — and rightly so. So why are public relations and marketing professionals so stressed out? This article from PRNewser boiled it down to the top five reasons:

1. Clients. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. From “unrealistic expectations” to limited budgets, respondents talked about how difficult some clients can be to work with. Based on our unscientific observation, this was the number one reason for the industry’s tension.

2. Constant change. Media changes never stop. And technology always has something new to offer. But there’s more to it than that.

“’Doing’ PR is stressful because: You’re working toward a creative vision that changes as it develops,” @Vivacions told us on Twitter. On top of that, there’s a ton of multitasking to be done.

“PR is so stressful because you often have to have a hundred different balls in the air at one time, and you have to be able to make that look effortless to your clients. Demands and expectations are high, budgets are often low, and dealing with the media can be challenging and draining!” wrote Erin Nevicosi in our comments section.

3. Because that’s the way relationships are. @AmyPR tweets, “…it’s based on relationships with people, and everyone is so different & [you] have to manage emotions.”

Commenter Heidi Groshelle says it’s also the number of relationships. “We are managing multiple relationships: Media, Analysts, Clients, Our Team, Advisors.”

4. PR personalities. “Cuz we touch everything. And we’re Type A control freaks,” @JennPet told us, an attribute that we’ve actually heard before.

“The type of personality required to make a great PR pro wants to please everyone from the client>media>customer,” said @MeganePR.

5. Lack of research. Frank Walton makes a case in the comments for the need for more data about outcomes.

“PR people know the principles of the practice and have past experience to draw on and (often) good intuitions. But we have just about no evidence, no data to predict the outcome of a PR tactic or strategy,” he writes.

Other stressful careers that made the top 10? Event coordinator, corporate executive, photojournalist and … taxi driver. And check out what stress factors were measured to create the top 10 list.

You’re sitting at your desk, viewing a website for your favorite brand. Just then, you have to run an errand where you’ll be sitting in a waiting room, and you want to view that same website on your mobile phone … but, can you? It all depends on the website.

With our on-the-go society, it’s a safe bet that many people not only have a desktop computer or a laptop but also have access to the Internet through an iPad or tablet device as well as some variety of smartphone. With all these devices and the constant desire for information, it is becoming more popular — and sometimes essential — to create a website that can be easily viewed on all devices.

“Having different versions of the same website makes it easier for the user to navigate the content no matter which device they are using,” says Kevin Moore, our multimedia designer here at Coles Marketing. “Without having different versions available, the user is limited in being able to view all content, such as video and images.”

For one of our clients, Dealer Services Corporation, Kevin has designed three different versions of their DSC Unplugged site — for the desktop, iPad and the mobile device. Certain content has to be designed specifically for each of those three versions. For example, the main difference between the desktop and the iPad version of DSC Unplugged is in places where Flash is used on the main site, still images are used on the iPad version because it doesn’t support Flash. And the mobile site is a significantly sized-down version of the main site, highlighting the core content from the site with little or light use of images.

What’s the best part? The site will detect which kind of device you are using and automatically take you to the particular version you need for the best view. I even tried it on my trusty BlackBerry, and sure enough, after typing in the main website address it took me straight to the mobile version of the site.

And with all the new devices and upgrades of older devices appearing at a quickening pace, it becomes a must to start considering the use of different versions of your brand’s website. Otherwise, you may not be reaching all possible consumers who are grabbing their phone or tablet and going on their way — without seeing your website. Need help with retooling your website and making it tablet and mobile-friendly? Let us know!

This year, the Indianapolis Home Show will combine with its companion show, the Indianapolis Home & Flower Show, for attendees to visit two great shows at one price!

Celebrating its 90th anniversary, the 10-day Indianapolis Home Show is the nation’s oldest and the Midwest’s largest home-focused extravaganza at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Since the Home Show was founded in 1922, it has become a tradition within the community, offering generation after generation the best in home products, decorating, construction and remodeling ideas. It is the largest consumer home event in Indiana, attracting crowds of homeowners primarily interested in home improvements and renovations.

And now the show is bigger and better than ever, offering those attendees primarily interested in gardens and outdoor living their own feature areas. An additional building in the South Pavilion will offer 25,000 square feet devoted to landscaping and gardening, with more than 20 lavish, landscaped feature gardens. From lovely lilies and ravishing roses to dazzling dahlias and jazzy jasmines, the gardens will offer a grandeur of greenery.

“We’re very excited to combine the Indianapolis Home Show with the Home & Flower Show,” Keller said. “With the excitement of the Super Bowl coming to Indianapolis at the beginning of February, we didn’t want residents to miss out on all the Home & Flower Show has to offer. Combining the two shows will cater to Indianapolis area residents’ continuous desire to learn, compare and shop for products and services for their homes and gardens. And the added bonus is they can visit two jam-packed shows in one location at one great price.”

The Indianapolis Home Show opens Friday, Jan. 20, and continues through Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012. Admission is $13 for adults, $3 for children ages 6 to 12 and free for children 5 and younger.

For more information, call 317-705-8719 or visit the Indianapolis Home Show website at www.IndianapolisHomeShow.com.

LinkedIn is a business community tool that some people use more than others. It can be a great way to connect with potential clients. As a user, I get regular updates alerting me to interesting recent posts in the LinkedIn community. The following post made me laugh. It’s about the overuse of industry speak or “corporate puffery” as I like to call it. It was provided by Dan Pallotta and his post is titled “I Don’t Understand What Anyone is Saying Anymore” and I couldn’t agree more with him.

I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore

I’d say that in about half of my business conversations, I have almost no idea what other people are saying to me. The language of internet business models has made the problem even worse. When I was younger, if I didn’t understand what people were saying, I thought I was stupid. Now I realize that if it’s to people’s benefit that I understand them but I don’t, then they’re the ones who are stupid.

There are at least five strains of this epidemic.

Abstractionitis
We have forgotten how to use the real names of real things. Like doorknobs. Instead, people talk about the idea of doorknobs, without actually using the word “doorknob.” So a new idea for a doorknob becomes “an innovation in residential access.” Expose yourself repeatedly to the extrapolation of this practice to things more complicated than a doorknob and you really just need to carry Excedrin around with you all day.

Acronymitis
This is a disease of epic proportions in the world of charity. I was at a meeting just two days ago at which several well-meaning staff members of a charity were presenting to their board, and the meat of their discussion revolved around the acronyms SCEA and some other one that began with “R” that I can’t recall. In the span of three minutes these acronyms must have been used eight times each. They were central to any understanding of the topic at hand, but they were never defined. So I had not the vaguest idea what the presenters were talking about. None. Could have been talking about how to make a beurre-blanc sauce for all I know.

Valley Girl 2.0
My partner and I were at a restaurant in the San Fernando Valley five years ago, and a real-live Valley girl was sitting in the booth behind us talking on her cell phone. We couldn’t stop listening to her. She had a world-class ability to string together half-sentences devoid of any substance whatsoever. And yet you felt as if something important were being discussed! “And she was like, ummm, and I was just like, you know, umm, no way, really, like, yeah, and when she was like that, I was just like..umm….” She could go on in this way for extended periods of time without mentioning any actual people, actions, or thoughts. There’s a business version of this illness. It involves the use of words such as “space,” “around,” “synergy,” and “value-add” with a healthy dose of equivocators like “sort of” and “kind of” to ensure that there is no commitment to anything being said: “I’m in the sort of sustainability space around kind of bringing synergistic value-add to other people’s work around this kind of space.” Oh, OK, that explains it.

Meaningless Expressions
I wrote about the phrase “thinking outside the box” recently and how overused and utterly misunderstood the expression is. There are many more. Another term that has lost its meaning is “Let’s exceed the customer’s expectations.” Employees who hear it just leave the pep rally, inhabit some kind of temporary dazed intensity, and then go back to doing things exactly the way they did before the speech. Customers almost universally never experience their expectations being met, much less exceeded. How can you exceed the customer’s expectations if you have no idea what those expectations are? I was at a Hilton a few weeks ago. They had taken this absurdity to its logical end. There was a huge sign in the lobby that said, “Our goal is to exceed the customer’s expectation.” The best way to start would be to take down that bullshit sign that just reminds me, as a customer, how cosmic the gap is between what businesses say and what they do. My expectation is not to have signs around that tell me you want to exceed my expectations.

Abstract Valley Girl 2.0 Acronymitis Using Meaningless Expressions
This is when you combine the four diseases above. So you get phrases like, “You should meet this guy with the SIO. He’s sort of this kind of social entrepreneur thinking outside of the box in the sustainability space and working on these ideas around sort of web-based social media, and he’s in a round two capital raise in the VP space with the people at SVNP.” How many times have you heard what you now recall to be precisely this sentence?

This would all be funny if it weren’t true. People just don’t make sense anymore. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble if you internalize this. Observe it, deconstruct it, and appreciate just how ridiculous most business conversation has become.

You will gain tremendous credibility, become much more productive, make those around you much more productive, and experience a great deal more joy in your working life if you look someone in the eye after hearing one of these verbal brain jammers and tell the person, “I don’t have any idea what you just said to me.”

 

Good manners=
“Say please and thank you.”
“It’s not nice to stare.”
“Keep your elbows off the table.”
“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.”

These might be some of the things you heard from parents and grandparents as you were growing up. Manners and courtesies seem to change as society evolves, but the basics remain the same. And how would those common courtesies apply to today’s world of social media?

Check out “10 things your grandmother can teach you about social media” from Eric Fulwiler.

1. Mind your manners. Social media is still social. Even though we are interacting in a virtual space, the same traditional social rules, laws and faux pas still apply. If you act like a jerk, don’t expect many friends.
2. Tuck in your shirt. How you present yourself is just as important in the virtual world as it is in the real world. Make sure you are always aware of how you appear to others.
3. Send a thank you card. People still appreciate being appreciated. It really doesn’t take much to convert an acquaintance to a friend, which will offer exponentially more value. A simple thank you or any genuinely human interaction of gratitude goes a long way towards this goal.
4. Keep your elbows off the table. Acting respectfully in front of others proves that you value them, which will usually make them value you more. And in social media, it’s all about value.
5. Turn your music down. Don’t contribute to the noise. Listen to whatever you want in your own personal space, but when your personal preferences start to become a distraction to others, people will tune you out.
6. Finish what you started. Any way you look at it, engagement is a commitment. When you make an effort to become part of a community, it’s not only up to you when or how often you interact with other members. If you put yourself out there as a friend, be prepared to be there when people reach out to you.
7. Finish your vegetables. There are some aspects of social media that aren’t sexy. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t important to your growth and health. Make sure you are keeping up with the essentials and not just chasing that buzz you get from a social sugar high.
8. Whatever happened to a good old fashioned…? Sometimes all these new gadgets and thing-a-ma-bobs aren’t as important or effective as we make them out to be. Sometimes a good old-fashioned email, phone call, or even in-person “get-together” can accomplish things that social media can’t.
9. A man is only as good as his word. The currency of social media is trust (or social capital). And if people can’t trust you, you have no value to them.
10. Think twice before you speak. You can always say something, but you can never take it back. Especially in social media where everything you say can be heard by anyone, forever, there are just too many “finites” to not reconsider everything you say before you say it.

Let Grandma’s old-fashioned advice help you, and in return, you can help her tweet.

Politics and sports – Two things I try not to pay too much attention to and certainly try not to get into discussions about, probably because I’m not too knowledgeable about either subject. But unless I totally cut off all my exposure to the news of the world – which sometimes I try to do – there’s no way I was able to miss two of the biggest stories capturing the public’s attention, involving two men: Herman Cain and Joe Paterno.

Herman Cain – a Republican presidential hopeful
Joe Paterno – one of the most well-known and respected football coaches in college history

And what scandal topic are they both involved in? Sexual misconduct.

I read a very interesting article by Aaron Perlut regarding the commonalities between the two scenarios, especially highlighting the crisis communication issues with each.

“Joe Paterno will soon be followed by Herman Cain into retirement, one due to his action, and one due to inaction. And while each case obviously veers well beyond just communications planning, it was a lack thereof that catapulted them to a level that could have been avoided and greatly limited the damage.”

A well-thought-out communication plan is a MUST – for any organization, company or celebrity/public figure. As we have so clearly seen in both cases, scandals – and the poor communication surrounding them – led to two high-profile demises.

Did the first 22 signs make you smile? Laugh? Sigh? Shake your head?

[PR Daily published a story this year from PR professional Lauren Fernandez on the 11 signs that someone works in public relations. (The story originally appeared on Fernandez’s blog.) The article unleashed a flood of comments that PR Daily compiled into a second story (“42 more signs you work in PR“).]

Here are the rest of the signs. (You know some of these – okay, MANY of these – describe you.)

23. You engage in weekly conversations with your clients that start with, “Why weren’t we included in this WSJ article?”

24. You’ve heard all the lines about sleep: “Sleep is overrated.” “You can sleep all you want when you die.” “Do you ever sleep?”

25. You start your day by digging out of client and competitor alerts and checking email, all before you’re out of bed.

26. You check HootSuite in the morning before you get out of bed just to monitor what has been said about your clients overnight.

27. Every Friday around 5:00 p.m. you think, “This could be crisis time!” (And sometimes even look forward to a good one.)

28. You know what time it is anywhere in the world and every country’s phone code, all without having to look at a reference guide.

29. You’re afraid to go more than 15 minutes (max) without checking Twitter/Facebook/news feeds to make sure you’re not missing anything.

30. You rely on to-do lists (yes, plural) to get you through your day, but often don’t get to cross anything off until 4 p.m. (after managing a few surprise crises).

31. You wake from a dream in the middle of the night, rolling over to grab the pen and paper you keep on your nightstand to jot it down so you won’t forget an idea for yet another crazy PR stunt. Work on the mind during the day and work on the mind while you sleep!

32. You can’t look at or listen to any form of media without thinking, “My client should be on/in that.”

33. My iPhone is my girlfriend. My MacBook Pro, my best friend.

34. You’re the only person groaning out loud when reading the paper on the bus. How were we not included?

35. You check your smartphone before brushing your teeth.

36. People have asked you if you sleep in your office and you’ve actually thought about where you’d put the sleeping bag … if it ever got to that.

37. Checking of smartphones and news becomes an everyday routine before bedtime and in the mornings.

38. You read/hear about a company’s crisis and instantly think, “I wonder who their AOR is.”

39. You have one copy of the AP Stylebook at work, one at home, one on your Kindle and the app on your phone.

40. At cocktail parties, you speak in quotable sound bites.

41. You never plan meetings on Fridays afternoons or make personal plans on Friday evenings. You know that “the call” is coming at 4:45 p.m., and everything will need to be dropped anyway.

42. You actually take surveys. It’s good client karma, right?

43. You think and speak in 140 characters or less.

44. You call taking any photo a “Photo-op.”

45. Post-it notes are your lifeblood.

46. You almost die if your BlackBerry is sent for servicing!

47. Your friends think you’re crazy for your undeniable attachment to your social networks.

48. Client’s products are decorations on your desk.

49. You eat every meal at the office and have a shelf dedicated to your favorite snacks, most of which include some kind of protein or snack bar.

50. You work out at 4:00 a.m.

51. You watch televised press conferences for fun and to steal really good talking points.

52. Your morning consists of simultaneously pitching different campaigns, for different clients, across different media markets, and often, in different languages.

53. Something really bad happens and you’re the first to announce, “We don’t have problems; we have opportunities.”