Archive for July, 2008

PR Thought Leader Steve Cody

Monday, July 28th, 2008

Steve Cody, Managing Partner and co-founder of Peppercom, discusses his guiding principles of PR and how he applies those principles to the changing face of the industry.

Some of Steve’s VlogViews:

“Focus on innovation. Focus on trying to understand what is keeping our clients up at night. Focus on attracting and retaining the very best people. Focusing on a culture where we take our clients and our business very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves very seriously at all.”

“We in PR aren’t necessarily seen as the digital solution that we should be. Digital, obviously has proven to be the most cost effective one to one marketing tool, but public relations firms still aren’t seen as the go to source.”

“What I get from [stand up comedy] is a lot of intangibles that I bring to the workplace…and that is reading non-verbals, picking up on an audience and the audience can be a new business presentation or a staff meeting…but, because there is only you in front of that audience, you are down to the essentials, you must be able to communicate.”

Peppercom

Search Terms:  Steve Cody, Peppercom, stand up comedy, Public Relations, Mount Kilimanjaro, digital media

PR Thought Leader Sabrina Horn

Friday, July 25th, 2008

Sabrina Horn, President & CEO of Horn Group, a leading digital communications agency, discusses some of the initiatives she is undertaking at her company, the integration of PR into a more general communications framework and the role that web video plays in her organization.

“Because of the internet, PR has to become more of a general purpose communications visual medium.”

“We are in the business of helping companies deal with change and we don’t deal with change very well ourselves sometimes. And so I think as an industry we have to really get ourselves around how PR is changing.”

“You’re talking about two kinds of business models. An interactive model, which is more projects based and the PR business model, which is more retainer  based. And putting those two under the same roof is tricky.”

“We see facebook, we see myspace. These are horizontal applications for social networks but, I think we are going to see a massive proliferation of niche, vertically made social networks for specific tribes and groups.”

Horn Group 

Search Terms:  Sabrina Horn, Horn Group, Women CEOs, women owned businesses, digital media

PR Thought Leader Richard Edelman

Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

Richard Edelman, President & CEO of Edelman, the world’s largest independent Public Relations firm, discusses the future or PR.

Richard Edelman’s Three Guiding Principles of PR:

“1. We have to be a global enterprise. So we’ve made money in the United States and have consistently invested it outside so today we have fifty-one offices around the world.”

“2. Public relations is much more than media relations, in fact it’s about stakeholder connection.”

“3. Trust and transparency. We have to behave in a way so that stakeholders can count on our material as trustworthy and accurate.”

Edelman

Check out Richard’s blog for insights from a key industry leader.

Search Terms: Richard Edelman, public relations, top PR people, media relations

Susan Winckler, FDA

Friday, July 18th, 2008

Help wanted at the FDA. Susan Winckler, Chief of Staff at the FDA, talks about the 1,300 job openings at the FDA and how they are combating the drop in public trust, in part thought a weekly blog by FDA commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach. Recorded at the exl Pharma communications conference.



Some of Susan’s VlogViews:

“We can communicate so much more quickly and we have so much more data at our disposal. Communication and science has led us to know more things and I think that when things are not handled well, it can inspire people to think that things aren’t working correctly when really the power to identify an outbreak or identify a problem with a drug shows the success of the industry and not a failure.”

“We are hiring about 1,300 folks and some of them are in the communications realm. We need to get better at risk communications and just get better at informing the public what it is we do. In order to be successful, we have to communicate well.”

Job Postings at the FDA

Check out Andy’s Take, the official blog of the FDA commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach

Search Terms: Susan Winckler, FDA, job openings, public health


exlPharma Communications Conference Series:


Michael Rinaldo                       Scott Hensley

                                             

                       Lisa Bodell