Archive for People
Life transitions are like striking a theater set
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My friend Dan Sussman, like me, lost his mother recently, and over coffee today he made one of the best analogies I have ever heard to describe the weirdness you go through when you are dispersing of your parents’ belongings. “I felt as if I were striking a set, like in the theater,” he mused. “You look at the objects, and then you move on.”
If that doesn’t completely describe what it’s like to go through a major life transition, I don’t know what does. Whether you’re packing up your office and leaving a job behind, or going through boxes of your mom’s belongings to figure out what to donate and what to keep, it’s exactly like taking down the set from a play. The little dramas that played out over time were intense and very real, but after the play is over they seem out of place and in many instances, sadly, just way too specific to that particular play to be of use in another story.
This isn’t to diminish their value in any way. Dan’s analogy just reminded me of how our lives are really only a series of different ongoing vignettes.
I hope whoever takes down my set saves and treasures my Topo Gigio key ring.
Photo credit: Nic’s events, creative commons license
Marion’s journey in self publishing
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I first met Marion a little over a year ago, when I limped into an Arizona Book Publishing Association meeting and grabbed a seat in the back. I was just starting to get out and about after struggling with piriformis syndrome. She came over immediately to greet me and welcomed me to the association.
I’ve gotten to know her better since then, and admire her mission and commitment to “giving voice” to others. She told me, “I have always been fascinated by who people are and where they come from, and why they live one side of the street instead of the other. Imagine my surprise when I met a group of women who chose to live on no street at all. What started out as a desire ‘to give voice’ to these women, wound up with a www.togivevoice.com website and an audio CD and then a book.”
Marion is a great example that you can be any age and from any walk of life to write a book that resonates with the public and exemplifies your passion. Over the past few years, she has given voice to these women in a variety of formats, including the book, the website, and through recorded interviews to help bring them alive. She has begun Internet-based marketing with blogs, podcasts and a Buy page on the website. Throughout the journey, she has relied on the Arizona Book Publishing Association to help her understand this new world of self-publishing. Read More→
A conversation with author Alan Korwin: self publishing and book promotion
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Author Alan Korwin
Book publicity is a talent that a lot of authors don’t possess. However you feel about the controversial topic of gun laws, (and I’m squarely in the middle), you have to admire someone like Alan Korwin. Through hard work and a natural promotional ability, he has taken his Arizona Gun Owner’s Guide through 24 successful self-published editions.
1). How did you first get the idea for your book, The Arizona Gun Owner’s Guide?
Moved here from NYC, where guns in the hands of the public are virtually unknown, and found Arizonans sold guns and ammo in supermarkets. When I asked, ”What are the rules?”, the guy at the counter asked me what I meant by rules. I figured there was room in the market for a book on it. I certainly wanted to know. People started making me offers for copies before I had it written. Read More→
Tiger Woods, Frankenstein, and Monty Python
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"Young Frankenstein" 1974
The PR blogs are abuzz with differing opinions on how Tiger should have handled his 2:30 a.m. car fiasco. Fraser Seitel, a crisis management expert and author of “Practice of Public Relations,” wrote an open letter to Tiger on Nov. 30th listing 5 critical PR moves Tiger should make right away. Seitel represents one side of the PR debate, one with which I agree: Go public, do it yourself, do it Tuesday, get it out, learn from your mistake.
Another view, represented by elite PR specialists such as Brian Solis, feels that Tiger should take time to compose his response before going to the media, and has a right as a private citizen to do so. Read More→
Switching career gears from PR to wine
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Found “The Savory Grape” in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, by accident. What a great find! Wine organized by flavor, not region.
Talking to the owner, Jessica Granatiero, I discovered that she had previously been in public relations. She seemed a lot calmer and happier than some of my fellow PR professionals, so I wanted to share her story with you. The Savory Grape opened its doors in April 2006.
You’re originally from Delaware – how did you end up in Rhode Island?
In 2004, I became engaged to be married. This led to a move to Rhode Island at which point I became an account supervisor for Feinstein Kean Healthcare, a division of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, based in Cambridge, Mass. I specifically targeted this company for a Read More→
Ways to stretch your personal brand based on brand management concepts
Posted by: | CommentsToday’s guest blogger is Steve Shu, a management consultant and business development professional with over 17 years of experience. Steve holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and both an ME and BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. He is also an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Irvine University with specialty interests in brand management, social media, and business strategy. He maintains one of the earliest and widely-recognized blogs on management consulting, which may be found at http://steveshu.typepad.com.
Last week when I saw Linda’s post on “Don’t brand yourself into a corner”, it triggered some thoughts that personal branding is not a widely understood topic. To me, personal branding is not simply about surface “image” and “an eyeless game” (an anagram adapted from drummer and famed lyricist Neil Peart) – one’s personal brand affects how deeply other people understand, remember, emotionally connect with and engage a person. Read More→
Meeting up with The Jenn Lee Group
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Can you adapt to change easily? Or are you set in your ways? I can’t imagine a better contrast than my life the last two months, flying back and forth from Arizona to Rhode Island.
On the one hand, I have my life in Arizona, where change comes rapidly, everything is new, and the public relations community is a thriving social media haven.
On the other hand, I have my world in Rhode Island, where I’m getting my ever-resistant-to-change mother settled into assisted living, and driving streets that haven’t been altered all that much since I first drove them in the 70s. Read More→
Are magazines dying?
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Meg Weaver
Meg Weaver of Wooden Horse Publishing analyzes magazine markets and trends, and provides this perspective on the state of magazines today:
Gourmet, Southern Accents, Vibe, Nickelodeon, Today’s Christian Woman, Portfolio, Pink, Spirit of Aloha, Hallmark, Memory Makers, Canadian Home & Country, Best Life, Western Interiors & Design, Blender, Pink – all magazines gone just this year!
What is going on? Are we seeing the end of the American magazine?
No – and yes. Many million-and-more circulation mass market magazines are, or will soon be, gone. Interesting, well-edited magazines, which give us a “good read,” will survive. Humans have always been suckers for a good story. Some publishers have already figured this out. National Geographic, The Economist, Consumers Reports, Smithsonian, Cook’s Illustrated, and others – to some degree even People magazine – have found that great content, targeted at smaller audiences of really interested people, make money. Read More→
Lizzie Borden, queen of spin
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If OJ was the crime of the 20th century, Lizzie Borden was the female equivalent for the 19th century. In 1892, she took a hatchet and killed her father and her stepmother, presumably so she could escape her father’s tight grip on the family finances and live the life she craved in high society in Fall River, Mass. (and no, that’s not an oxymoron).
If you’re not familiar with the story, the amazing aspect of it is that the police never checked Lizzie’s clothes for blood (it was considered improper at the time to examine female suspects), and they bought her story that she had purchased hydrogen cyanide (a deadly chemical) to clean a seal coat. Uh, doesn’t that sort of indicate you have ill intentions? Read More→
Chappaquiddick in PR 2.0 instead of PR 1.0
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How would Ted Kennedy’s reputation have fared if PR 2.0 had been in existence in summer 1969, when the infamous Chappaquiddick incident occurred?
No cell phones, no camera phones, no Internet, no social media, no citizen journalists. Just a quiet dirt road on an isolated part of Martha’s Vineyard.
It’s a part of history that will always remain a mystery. To his credit, Ted Kennedy went on air to acknowledge his shortcomings. But so many questions linger…
The methods to convey information and initiate conversations are different now. But the PRSA ethics code is always a good guideline to follow. There can be as much deception in omission of key information as there is in slanted information. I’m a Ted Kennedy fan. But this is one part of his past that continues to trouble me…
