[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] The second a crisis rears its ugly head and a reporter knocks on your door about it, you start quaking in your boots. You get a lump in your throat and notice you’re sweating. But you know in your heart that your organization is not the villain in this issue, […]
Presentations are a gamble; they’re risky. You invest valuable time and money, but you can’t predict the presentation climate that you will be dealt. You cannot calculate the exact mood of the audience or control all variables of the situation. To succeed, you must be bold, and come prepared with an ace up your sleeve. […]
[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] They’re the bane of guilty players everywhere. They pop out from behind buildings and bushes as you’re scrambling to get into your car. They run you down with a microphone stuck in your face and a Frezzi light blinding you. You’re trapped like a deer in a headlight with an […]
The media love to tell “horse race” stories. And if you’ve been watching/reading about the presidential race over the last year, you’ve seen a lot of them. While horse race stories are certainly legitimate storytelling “frames,” we’re not sure democracy is best-served with an overabundance on that particular frame. From Poynter in a piece written by […]
From The New York Times: For some people, public speaking comes naturally. But if you are like me, you may um and ah too much, spurred by the worry that nerves may get the best of you, that you might speak too fast or mess up in some way. So I have been practicing my public […]
Laura Reiley’s first investigation was a small one. But it proved to be a nibble into something much bigger, a story the Tampa Bay Times’ food critic took on this week. Four years ago, over dinner at Tampa’s famous Bern’s Steak House, Reiley listened as the waiter expounded on specials that came from the restaurant’s […]
It’s no secret that journalists get exasperated with PR pros who pitch wholly inappropriate stories to them. Even those PR pros who are experts at researching a particular journalist’s beat and outlet and successfully land an interview for their company’s lead spokesperson—say, a CEO—can aggravate time-strapped journalists if that spokesperson is ill-prepared or has a […]
People size you up in seconds, but what exactly are they evaluating? Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy has been studying first impressions alongside fellow psychologists Susan Fiske and Peter Glick for more than 15 years, and has discovered patterns in these interactions. In her new book, “Presence,” Cuddy says that people quickly answer two questions when they first […]
From our colleague, Caitlin Rourk: The 2016 presidential election has been nothing short of a spectacle, turning traditional political conventions (no pun intended) squarely on their head. And just as this election has forced the political establishment to alter its strategies, business organizations must reevaluate how to approach the unpredictable and unforgiving crises they face […]
From Jim VandeHei, writing in TheInformation.com: Digital media companies are caught in the “crap trap,” mass-producing trashy clickbait so they can claim huge audiences and often higher valuations. Here is how they fell into this lethal trap: They got into the content game to produce news or info they might be proud of, believing they […]