Talking Heads cover Branding

First posted on Flack’s Revenge I love the band Talking Heads, and saw them for first time in college many years ago. Back then, I thought they had a cool name – but only found out that it refers to the disembodied heads of yakking newscasters when my friend and fellow concert-goer explained. Fast forward […]
PR in a Pandemic: Top Tips

It’s dark in here. Let me find the light switch. There you go. Hey, where is everybody? It sure is quiet. These are the thoughts you might have, if you work in PR in the Age of Coronavirus. People are bunkered down. No one knows for sure when the crisis will end. Media and social […]
Should you Pay to Play? Advice from Our Team

They come in various flavors. The too-good-to-be-true TV spot. The “Pssst I can get you into XXXX, guaranteed, just pay me $YYYY.” The endless procession of awards and articles with price tags attached. Many PR people reflexively dismiss these and spend a lot of time explaining why to clients. It’s a mistake to indiscriminately shoot […]
PR, the Last Bastion of Truth

As we enter a new decade, I implore PR to do its part in protecting the journalistic info supply chain. Be truth-tellers. Be great fact-checkers. Now wait a second, I can hear you protest. That is not our job. We are paid to put the best possible spin on our news. To help the team […]
Fusion CEO on the The No CMO Podcast

“The No CMO” Host and producer Ryan Sullivan had a far-ranging interview with Fusion PR CEO Jordan Chanofsky about PR and branding, with a special focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency offerings.
FUD 2.0 and the State of PR Ethics

I’m always interested in topics related to my profession, PR, and the industry we serve, technology. So I was eager to see what NY Times had to say in Jack Nicas’s recent piece: How Facebook’s P.R. Firm Brought Political Trickery to Tech. Longtime readers know that I like to call out misperceptions about PR, hence […]
Four Big Ideas that Can Transform Your PR

They huddle around a conference room table. The lights go dark. The 35 mm slide projector floods the screen. It’s backlight shines an eerie glow on the presenter’s lower face. This is not just some an ad man (or woman). It’s the sermon from the mount. Or maybe Dracula. The pitch is delivered, building to […]
Tow Center & Reuters Share Research on Publishers & Platforms

I love to check out reports from Tow Center for Digital Journalism and Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. They cover the intersection of news and digital media and can be a great resource for PR pros and digital marketers. So I eagerly attended the Platforms and Publishers meetup at Columbia Tow Center last […]
Interview with Benedict Nicholson of NewsWhip
In my last post, I explained that social media data can be used to bolster PR efforts. E.g., knowing that KDnuggets scores higher than the NY Times for social media engagements about machine learning can be a big deal if you work in that space (and that is not just a hypothetical – it is […]
Pitch about Nothing, Post about Something

I came to PR in a roundabout way, via engineering, marketing, sales and IT consulting. When I finally landed in PR (at the agency where I still work today), I learned I was good at this. But key experiences along the way led me to wonder what it means to do a good job in […]