Crisis Communication and the Golden Mean

Here’s a good thought experiment you can conduct from the comfort of your well-appointed office (that may or may not smell of rich mahogany), your 12 square feet of space in a cube farm, your couch or from wherever it is you are reading this post: make a list of all the times you’ve told […]

5 Things Every College Comms Major Should Hear

This spring I filled in as an affiliate professor, teaching Intro to Public Relations, at Loyola University in Baltimore. The department chair seemed sheepish at the prospect of asking someone with my experience to teach the basics to freshmen, “I understand this may be rudimentary and not very interesting for you, but we could use […]

Death, Taxes, Crisis in 2014

This past year reinforced the ongoing need for solid crisis management strategy and communication planning, regardless of what your organization does. I didn’t attribute this quote because in our community, as far as I can tell, this is essentially a cliché. It’s cliché because if my great, great grand pappy (conceptually pictured here) were a […]

When ethics collide: The boss vs. the profession

I spoke to a capstone public relations class at a local university last week. The future of PR is extremely bright if these men and women are a fair cross-section. They asked some great questions and made some astute observations. Today, I want to delve into one question about ethics worth sharing. Question: Where do […]

The LeBron Machine, Personal Branding and Storytelling

Personal branding, and the reputation management that goes along with it, is a continual process that follows the same formula – in a broad sense – as when the craft is applied to the corporate world. You create an identity that is easy for stakeholders to recognize and understand, then maintain and grow it through more […]