Got Diversity?

Lately, there has been much ado about Saturday Night Live’s (SNL) hiring of a new African-American woman cast member (SNL has since hired two new African-American women writers to join her).

The issue started when it was pointed out that SNL did not have a single African-American female cast member in its current lineup and hadn’t had one on the show since 2007. Many have found this omission to be pretty remarkable, especially given that the Daily Show easily found the very funny and African-American Jessica Williams to join its group of diverse correspondents. Williams was hired when the faux cable news program needed to replace the talented Wyatt Cenac (another African-American correspondent) when he decided to leave the show.

Since this observation has become public, SNL has received quite a bit of media coverage and not exactly the good kind. Negative PR associated with perceived hiring practices is never a good look, particularly in an era where we have an African-American President, females are leading fortune 100 companies, and every other TV commercial seems to focus on a group of racially diverse friends enjoying good times with a product.

While SNL is hitting back at the problem with its recent hires, all of this talk of diversity and hiring has got me thinking about the holidays. Every holiday season companies across the nation participate in the time-honored tradition of distributing holiday cards to current and potential clients, as well as other stakeholders. The cards are meant as a subtle way to acknowledge the occasion for celebration while letting people know that they’re being thought about.

Most of the time when holiday cards are distributed, via mail or email in this day and age, they typically contain some politically correct greeting, message and image. But every so often people will receive what I’ll refer to as the “this is our company” holiday card which features either all of a business’s employees (usually smaller companies do this) or everyone in a particular department (larger companies tend to favor this approach).

I actually received a couple of the “this is our company” e-cards this holiday season, as well as in past seasons, and one thing immediately jumped out at me when I opened the card – there were no minorities featured. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words and when the image you want to portray to your customers and stakeholders says, “Yup, no diversity here” or “look our workforce is racially pure,” you may be setting yourself up for unwarranted negative PR.  

The moment I saw the image I no longer focused on the card’s intended purpose or message but rather on the possible reasons why this company didn’t have any African-Americans on staff. Surely there was at least one qualified Black person that could’ve been hired. All of those racially diverse beer commercials couldn’t have been wrong in their reflections of Americana, so what’s the deal with this company?  

At the companies I’ve worked for, this was always something I made sure the organization was conscious of – how it was perceived from a diversity stand point. This included what types of images were to be utilized on the website, in publications and with the marketing materials. We would meticulously evaluate photos and imagery to make sure anything used publically accurately reflected organizational values.

At the moment I’m currently in the market for a new position. As a part of my job search, when I’m evaluating a potential new career home, I always make sure to visit a company’s website to see pictures of the staff, particularly the leadership team and board members. It always gives me something additional to consider when I see an absence of minorities and/or women in leadership or the top positions. When it comes to a company’s image, this can be an overlooked facet of reputation management.

Given the fact that not all of a company’s customers or prospective employees belong to a single race of people, it might be beneficial to show the public that not only does your business cater to all people, but is reflective of all people. And that is just good business.

Hello, Is This Thing On?

Forgive me Blogger for I have sinned. It has been 216 days since my last blog post.

A funny thing happens when you have to manage an organizational blog that is devoid of consistent voice, purpose, creativity, or personality…it has a tendency to have an effect on the blogging that you do for fun. Well at least that is what happened in my case.

Initially, I thought that my personal blogging would provide the proper creative inspiration and counter balance to all the work related blogging I was required to do. And in the beginning that was the case. However, overtime my personal blogging was what began to suffer. But blogging for work wasn’t the sole reason for the change.

For me personally, blogging is a creative outlet as well as a vehicle to connect with others interested in my professional or other interests. It allows me to share some of the insights I’ve accumulated throughout the years. It also provides me with a constructive way to share aspects of my personality and private life with people that may not know that side of me. Sounds like a good thing, right?

It would have been a good thing if there weren’t a number of bad things that I did as a blogger – key things you should never do if you want to have a successful blog. These things included:

• Not blogging consistently enough (I should be blogging weekly at a minimum)
• Blogging two infrequently (sheeesh, it’s been 216 days since my last post)
• Passing up opportunities to guest blog for others (this could have exposed me to new audiences)
• Not taking the necessary steps to promote my own blog (if you write it, they won’t necessarily come)

For these transgressions, I apologize to the people who have subscribed to my blog, faithfully commented on my posts, or willingly shared my content with others. You deserve better from me. I can do better to earn your readership.

From a work stand point, I’ve always been a proponent of maintaining a blog. In a communications world dependent upon content creation, blogs rock. An effective blog gives a company/organization an opportunity to connect with its key stakeholders in a more intimate way. It can serve as a forum to share the news and/or stories that your company/organization wants to tell, but might not have otherwise found an audience for through traditional methods.

While there is not a universally established and agreed upon set of criteria for what constitutes an official blog or how a blog post should be written, blogging should never be a painful or demoralizing experience, or an exercise in concentrated boredom. A good blog offers something for the reader as well as the blogger. That is the only path for growing a blog’s presence and audience.

To accomplish this goal, my counsel to any company wishing to establish its own blog is to think about the blogs that YOU like to read on your personal time, or the blogs related to your industry you enjoy visiting on a daily basis. What is it that attracts you to those blogs and keeps you returning to consume more posts? Was it the blogger, content, style of writing, perspective, or readability? If so, those are the elements that your place of business should try to incorporate and emulate in your own voice. Make that blog something that you would want to read versus something you have to do and it will find the life it needs and the space to grow.

Given that premise, I know exactly what has to be done and what should not be done to ensure the success of the next company blog I oversee. And number one on that list is to limit the number of people involved in the blogging process.  Unlike the popular AT&T commercial more is not always better. Adding anyone else to the equation, say beyond the author and an editor, and you court disaster, primarily as it pertains to consistent voice and purpose.   

My recent time away from any manner of blogging has been beneficial. The hiatus has given me an opportunity to read the blogs that I enjoy as well as evaluate the positive traits of some very successful blogs. I’ve also used my time away to pick up some helpful hints and advice that I can use in my own blogging, or to combat the dreaded writer’s block. Here are some of the tips that I picked and hopefully you’ll find them useful too:

• 23 Ways To Be A More Productive Blogger
• Why Blogging Still Matter for Public Relations
• Time Management for Writers
• The 5 C’s of Blogging for your Personal Brand
• Do Your Fans, Friends, and Followers Actually Care About Your Content?

If you find inspiration or help in any of this of this information that I’ve plugged be sure to let the author know (and don’t forget to let them know where you saw it shared).

For the year 2014 one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to recommit myself to my personal blog and blogging. So I hope that you’ll stick around for the ride. If there’s something that you’d like to see me do more of or a topic you’d like to see me cover, let me know in the comment section.

A PR Pro’s Pledge

Recently, I was partaking in the smorgasbord of industry content that PR Daily offers and I came across an entry that captured my attention – “Sign the PR Pro’s Pledge.”

The piece was straightforward and honest about what we as public relations professionals need to do in order to maintain our personal credibility as well as the credibility of our craft.

So after reading the case that was laid out by the author, I decided to make a public commitment and take the pledge. And as the author of the pledge urges, “If enough of us sign this, and share it with each other, and more importantly, share it with clients and bosses, we may have a real chance at success, whether that success is for our clients, or our own reputations.”

So united we must stand against bad PR and the people who champion it.

The PR Pro’s Pledge

I, L.A. Jones, being of sound and strategic PR mind, hereby swear before all my PR and journalism colleagues, to abide by the following rules for best practice public relations. Should I violate any of the rules contained herein, let me be shamed in a public forum of my peers, with nary a media call returned to me, so long as I shall practice PR:

1. I will not spam journalists by sending multiple journalists the same, generic release or pitch in the same email or in separate emails.

2. If I have to send a generic release or pitch because time is tight or there’s a gun to my head, I will at least hide all the addresses in the BCC line or send them separately with a personalized salutation.

3. I will not call a journalist on deadline to see if they got my email.

4. I will not try to pitch a journalist a story after the journalist has become a victim of an email blast where all other media outlets were visible in the email “to” line.

5. I will not turn off my cell phone after sending a release or pitch on a Friday about a weekend event.

6. I will not pitch a story about a client or boss receiving an award, unless my client or boss is an A-list celebrity, a high-ranking authority, or a truly remarkable individual.

7. I will not pitch a story that is not news to anyone but my client or boss.

8. I will not lie, stretch the truth, or even white wash information to make my client or boss appear better than they are.

9. I will not purposefully hide information from, or circumnavigate questions asked by the media.

10. I will not buy advertising with a media outlet in attempt to garner more coverage for my boss or client. I won’t even suggest it as a strategy.

11. I will not pitch a journalist that I am not positive covers the topic I am pitching.

            Signed,

           L.A. Jones

Why Ask Why?

The word consists of only three simple letters, but it’s packed with so much relevance and impact – why?

It’s the question every PR pro must ask himself, a client, or an organizational leader at some point in their career, if not daily – why?

Why is the question that sets us to purpose and assigns meaning to our actions, as in why are we doing this?

You were probably first introduced to “why” early on in your professional PR career, back when you drafted that first event media alert. You remember the one that started with a brief intro summary of the event and continued with the following standardized questions and answers (also known as the 5 W’s): who, what, when, where and…why?

It was always the why in that alert that closed the deal enticing a targeted media outlet to attend and cover it (Why do I need to know this? Or, why should I come to your event?)

Over the years, the question of why has increased in its importance, particularly as a determining factor during the internal dialogue that precedes a PR/communication action. If that preceding dialogue is not taking place, then that’s a problem and a topic for a future blog post. But back to the why that does happen during that internal discussion. An executive comes to you and urges that a press release be drafted and distributed.

Before the draft of that release begins, a thoughtful PR pro would assess the objective and ask why is it necessary that we issue this as a news release? Why not explore another way to get our message across as in a media pitch or social media communication. Or why do we think a reporter would be interested in receiving this when there is limited news value?

Asking why also indicates intellectual curiosity and drives the discussion. This is the question that smart people have to ask. And in some situations you have to be the one to say or ask why not? Someone on the team suggests organizing a clever flash mob in front of the NBC studio and another person on the team asks why we should do this. Maybe you’re the one saying why not, before assessing the potential ROI, pitfalls and probability of success.

By asking the why question on the front end, particularly during the concept and/or deliberation stage, it could save you and your employer time, effort, finances and exposure to disappointment. Nothing smarts more than the failure to reach a goal, or worse the failure to identify what the goals are in the first place because no one had the common sense to ask a simple three lettered word – why?

Now, why are you just sitting there and not leaving a comment about this blog post? Feel free to share an example of a time when you asked “why” and thwarted a PR disaster or helped to strengthen a communications objective.

This is a PR situation!

Why Your News Release Needs Enzyte: 10 Causes of Impotency

Despite not being the magic bullet to securing media coverage some executives (and PR Pros) believe it to be, the news release is still a time tested and valuable tool of the public relations trade. I’ve been in the PR profession for about 15 years now and I’ve probably written and/or edited more news releases than I care to remember. With the exception of the Investor Relations release, I’m intimately familiar with all manner of news release types imaginable, so no one is ever going to throw me for a loop in asking me to draft a specific kind of release.

Over the years, I’ve come to know the good, the bad and ugly of news releases. Unfortunately, for those in my profession, it’s usually the bad and the ugly that we get called out for by our brothers across the aisle wearing the journalism hats. And if we are to continue utilizing the news release as a tool, we are going to have to stop writing ineffectual crap and sending it to the media in hopes of acquiring coverage.

Call me the News Release Whisperer.

To assist in this effort, I offer the following 10 suggested reasons that your news release might be coming up limp and not getting the results your company or client desires:

10. Drafting a release for the wrong reason. Many news releases start out D.O.A. because they are drafted for all the wrong reasons at conception. When someone first suggests drafting a release it is always best to ask the naïve question, “What are we trying to accomplish by drafting this and who is its intended audience?” You’d be surprised to learn that sometimes the media (the original reason press releases were first created) are the last audience the release was intended for and sometimes they don’t make the list at all.

9. Misguided attempts to create content. Sadly, sometimes news releases are drafted simply as a source of content for an organization’s website or social media outreach. Granted a good news release drafted for legitimate reasons also will achieve this goal, but for whatever reason, some opt to forgo the legitimate aspect of it and go straight to the dessert. The hunt for SEO and fresh content has given rise to the unnecessary news release. Yes content is still king (and if not king a very buck wild prince on a weekend bender in Vegas) but a news release shouldn’t be used as some stand in for an informational enticement. If you want to create new content that doesn’t particularly lend itself to announcing news, try instead writing a new blog post, a case study or an issue brief.

8. Your news release only makes sense to you and those closes to your company (staff, industry peers or Board of Directors). Having worked at a PR agency I’ve seen this occur on numerous occasions. When we would draft a release, on a client’s behalf, in understandable language for the media using the universal AP style of writing and submit it to them for review/approval, the client would return the draft chocked full of their industry’s jargon, terminology and rewritten in the style of their industry (think legalese or real estate). This happens a lot when the release really wasn’t meant for the media to begin with (see #10). As an organization you must remember that not every reporter knows your industry or what you mean when you say {insert indecipherable industry lingo here}. It’s always best to follow the K.I.S.S. rule and write for the media receiving the release.

7. One size does not fit all. The same news release that you write for specialized and/or trade media outlets may not work for the general market/consumer media. If the ultimate goal of your news release to generate a B2B outcome, it might be best to just focus your efforts on outlets that are more suited to achieve this result. But I already know what your boss probably told you, “We want to maximize our exposure. Besides, business people read {insert name of highly coveted publication} too.” While trade media outlets don’t always have the readership of general market media nor are nearly as sexy, they often attract the right people. And let’s not forget that the trade and general market media don’t necessarily speak to the same people, and definitely don’t speak to their audiences in the same way. The focus of your news release shouldn’t only be targeted to a reporter’s interest and beat, but also their audiences.

6. Too damn long. I’m almost certain there is a special place in hell for people who draft four to six pages long news releases that have nothing to do with investor relations. I remember the very first time I saw a news release that boldly encroached upon the four pages mark. I cringed reading it as the information seemed to go on and on and on. I couldn’t wait for it to end. If that was the feeling I had as a PR pro, I shuttered to think of how a reporter receiving that thesis paper of a news release would feel. If your news release is more than 1 ½ to 2 pages, you are officially doing too much. News can often get lost in a sea of words and concepts. And if the reason for the lengthy release is directly related to the inclusion of a slew of c-suite approved boilerplates, consider just supplying a hyperlink back to the org website pages that contain that same information. (I have a specific boilerplate rant, but I’ll save that for a future blog post).

5. You’re giving away the milk for free. In follow up to the previous cause of impotency (see #6) sometimes a release is too damn long because a company wanted to throw everything in it, including the kitchen sink. I understand that you want to give the reporter as much information as possible to aid them in the coverage of your news, but there are other ways of doing that (think social media release). I’ve never viewed a news release as a do it all solution, but rather as an enticement to want to find out more. I prefer that the interested reporter follow up with me to learn more or ask to speak to one our subject matter experts or executives. A great pitch or news release will always leave them wanting more. And if they like it, then they should put a ring on it (and in our profession that ring comes in the shape of well rounded, positive story).

4. Lack of creativity. Somewhere in the history of the press release, probably shortly following its genesis, I believe a meeting was held by a secret order of c-suite executives that made a pact that from hence forth, all news releases should be written in the same manner for all eternity: The header shall begin with the name of our company followed by a commanding verb; the opening sentence of the lead must begin with the name our company followed by an authoritative verb; the opening sentence must contain a differentiating positioning statement and/or some elements of our boilerplate; and we must include an executive quote that repeats what was said in the lead paragraph (but only in a more executive tone). Yeah, I know how many of these things actually came into being, but the circumstances driving their necessity have long since passed. We are now in a new age that requires new tactics. Reporters receive goo gobs of news releases on the daily, so you have to do something to make yours stand out and scream report me! Don’t be afraid to embrace creativity when it comes to drafting your news release.

3. Death by benign quote. Ever seen a news release with an inconsequential executive quote, or worse a plethora of inconsequential quotes from a variety of different people at the company? I have. And I’ve also seen the multiple quote approach used where everyone quoted was offering competing variations of the same nothing burger statement. When was the last time that you saw a quote included in the news release actually included in a story being covered by a noteworthy media outlet? I’ll wait. The reason, you’ve probably not encountered this unicorn sighting is because most executive quotes are really bad and don’t offer any new information. Also, good reporters want to conduct their own interviews and get their own quotes. But just think of how much you’d increase the odds of having the quote used if it contained some actual valuable information (not found elsewhere in the release) or was actually interesting.

2. I hear voices (but none of them are consistent). More does not automatically equate to better. Sometimes there is a painful downside to group think and crowdsourcing, and that usually occurs when a bunch of different people at one company (sometimes external consultants chip in on this too) all contribute to the writing of a single news release. Want to take your company news announcement from concise to gumbo, just ask everybody to contribute to it. When different departments evaluate a news release’s intent, it is often done so through the lens of their departmental needs and not of the overall organization and brand. My counsel would be the less cooks in the kitchen, the better. Trust your org communicators, the guardians of your voice and brand.

1. No News is bad news. The one constant that every effective news release shares is that it contains actual news. Without the news part, what you have is giant waste of a reporter’s time. Now here is where things get really tricky, because every company actually believes that the thing they want to talk about is news or at minimum noteworthy of mention. However, in reality most of these instances don’t pass the news smell test. This is when sound PR counsel becomes paramount. Before you begin crafting that “news” release, you need to ask yourself some simple questions, such as: Will anyone outside of our office find this interesting? Does this provide a solution to an existing problem or make life easier for others? Has anyone else ever done this before? Has this been recently covered by the media? And lastly, can you provide a real life example showing how this works? There may be other questions that help you determine whether or not you have news to share, but these five ought to do the trick. In my experience, more times than not, the thing a company wants to pitch is not actually news and may be better suited for an ad. Always be honest in your assessment of what’s news and you’ll have better results.

So in the future, if you want your news release to be a little more potent and stand out with the media, think of adding some natural news enhancement. You're are bound to see some improvement in your...(cough)..."coverage."

 Okay pr pros and journos, did I leave anything out to improve the company news release?

When Disaster Strikes

By now everyone with access to a news media outlet or a social media platform is well aware of the devastating storm that recently wreaked havoc across the country, especially on the east coast. And if you’re not learning about the storm second hand, then you’re probably one of the more than a million people that personally felt the storm’s wrath (myself included).Today, there are an alarming number of people and businesses still without power.

Whenever a natural disaster such as this occurs and it negatively impacts people’s lives on a large scale, the target of the most public ire is usually the local utility company, followed by the local government. Most of the people’s angst and anger can be directly attributed to the loss of electricity that typically follows a storm of this magnitude. Without power, food spoils, temperatures rise or fall, entertainment is extinguished, business is lost, and everyday life-functions that we normally take for granted come to a screeching halt.

In the area where I live and work – the DMV (DC, Maryland, and Virginia) – the two dominate energy providers are PEPCO and the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE).Because I live within BGE’s coverage area and my home was without power for roughly 24 hours, I’ll just focus on their handling of storm’s aftermath…from a public relations standpoint.

Nobody likes a bad storm, especially when it involves the loss of electricity. But what people hate even more than the storm is the company responsible for returning life back to normal when that storm is over. With a total of 1.24 million customers in the DMV and a large portion of them without power, BGE faced a daunting challenge of restoring everyone’s electricity without sustaining a crushing blow to consumer confidence or its public image (think BP Gulf oil spill).

While the storm itself wasn’t BGE’s doing (or any other energy company for that matter), it was perceived as their fault that people had to go days without power. And with 100 degree temperature days being the norm, one can understand if people are a little pissed. No A/C on a very hot day is more than the inconvenience of not being able to watch the latest installment of HBO’s True Blood, it can mean the difference between life and death.

So how did BGE do in terms of their PR and crisis communications efforts? In my opinion, they did outstanding. I give them a grade of an “A minus.” I watched them closely to see how they would handle this delicate situation of communicating with a fragmented audience residing in a 3.0 world.

Measuring the return on a PR initiative can be, at times, subjective, but how you respond and communicate during a crisis situation is pretty straightforward – you either did a good job or a bad job. Fail at crisis communications as a company and it can cost you your business, or at minimum brand equity. People have a tendency to remember how badly an organization handles a crisis (think Hurricane Katrina and Waco).

Because of how I receive a large portion of information these days, I decided to see what BGE was up to via Twitter. In checking their Twitter feed, I saw not only good information about what was happening and what they were currently doing to alleviate the problem, but I also saw that they were engaging with, in some cases, irate customers via Twitter. As such, I decided to tweet them with my observations (FYI, they didn’t directly respond back to me).

Overall, I liked BGE’s messaging and use of Twitter, especially the additions of the images via their Flickr account. But while I thought it was beneficial to show the visuals of the damage that was done so that people could grasp the scope of the problem and understand why they had no electricity, I thought it would be even better to incorporate visuals of the BGE technicians working tireless to fix the problems. I’d like to think that my suggestion was heeded, because on July 1^st, the photos on Flickr switched from disaster porn to nothing but images of BGE workers solving the problems.

In addition to what was happening on Twitter, BGE implemented a full court social media press, also communicating and responding via Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Most of the relevant social media touch points were covered (sorry Google +). BGE also made excellent use of its website’s homepage. For what they were doing in the digital space, in light of the circumstances, I gave them high marks. It just goes to show that if you don’t have a social media crisis plan, you need to develop one immediately.

I also thought that BGE did a solid job on the traditional media relations component of their crisis communications. Whether it was with TV, radio or print media outlets BGE consistently got the message out as to what they were doing to solve the problem or provide solutions. They even drafted and placed that magical position missive known as the Op-Ed (it ran in both the Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore Business Journal). And even the company’s online media center stayed current with the latest news releases and company blog posts.

As a PR Pro, watching the BGE Comm Team at work was somewhat exciting, taking me back to my crisis communications days at the Maryland Transit Administration. While the circumstances surrounding why they had to test the readiness of their communications apparatus in the first place was due to an unfortunate nature, and by no means does this glowing review of their PR efforts mean that they’ve fixed all the power problems, it was refreshing to see a company execute a crisis communication effort in an effective manner.

Oh by the way, I gave BGE an A minus for the response rates or in some minor cases a lack of a response via social media, and for what appears to be non sanctioned spokes people going on camera and/or talking to the media.

So how does your company/organization’s crisis communication plan stack up?

So You Want To Be In PR?

When it comes to the consensus of public relations professionals, one of the few things that we all can agree upon is that hardly anyone outside of the communications industry understands what it is that we actually do for a living (especially our relatives). Even our industry had to have a national dialogue to define the term “public relations.”

Most of the general public confusion is due in part to the role of the PR professional being so varied and stretched across multiple communication and publicity functions. Are PR people spokespeople, marketers, staff writers, event coordinators, or social media specialists? The answer is yes, and then some.

While many in our profession happily specialize in just one of the previously mentioned disciplines, many others (like me) are multi-tactical, cross functionary strategists that are required to do a lot of communication related things, and that makes the position hard to define.

To illustrate this point, I’d like to share what a typical day for me resembles in my role as director of communications for a DC-based trade association.

A Day in the Life

7-8:30am: On the commute into work I begin the mind numbing process of whittling down and reading/responding to what will be a plethora of emails I will receive throughout the day (some are carryovers from the previous day). I also begin mentally planning out my assignments for the day and prioritizing projects that are in process.

8:30-10:30am: I’m in the office but still responding to various emails, in addition to scanning through newspapers, trade pubs (online and print), the internet, and social media sites for association/issues related news items, industry trend stories/news, or significant member company related news.  Following, I evaluate the daily reports from our media monitoring service, then the fun part starts – updating division heads and executive staff of news they should be made aware of.

10:30 am-12 pm: This is usually my prime media pitching time as I distribute already approved news releases, or follow up with media outlets that were previously pitched news stories or sent releases. This is also the time I draft and distribute new pitches or return non priority reporter messages/calls.

Also, somewhere between 8:30 am to noon, I participate in Comm. Team meetings with the Director of Digital Communications and the VP of our department. During and after these meetings is prime time for creative thinking and coming up with new ideas and strategies for telling the association’s story or communicating its messages.

12-1:30pm: I spend this time updating the association’s social media communications typically, editing and/or drafting numerous written pieces such as: e-blast communications, news releases, internal departmental memos, marketing copy, meeting minutes or blog posts (I’m the red ink guy). I also use this time to update the organization’s website copy or evaluating website traffic data.

1:30-3pm: Meetings with various division heads to discuss what’s new or updates on specific issues, prep for media interviews, and occasional crisis communications as opposition groups, activists or concerned consumers outfits like to issue statements, negative studies, or invites to press conferences around this time of the day. As a result, I’m usually busy researching an issue, preparing a statement or responding to investigative media. Also during this time, I’m typically shooting down an onslaught of request from vendors looking to work with us.

FYI – The emails never stop coming throughout the day.

3-5pm: During this period I attempt to wrap up as many projects/assignments as possible (as they are almost always due by COB). I also spend this time trying to update and/or clean up the media monitoring reports so that they are ready by month’s end. This also is when I review a number of association produced materials, or products to ensure quality control and brand consistency/standards. And when called upon, I work with our affiliate groups on a number of communication needs (media relations, editing, issues management, etc.).

Then there's the impromptu meetings I have throughout the day with the VP of Comm. to give debriefs, status updates or participate in quick strategy sessions.

So as you can see, despite lacking "the sexy," it’s a pretty busy day and can be rather intense on occasion.  While each and every day does not look exactly like the example I’ve provided (new priorities pop up and the time frames aren’t so concrete), it does offer a pretty accurate reflection of what I do on behalf of the association. But it's all public relations related.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to singularly focus on media relations or social media, or if I would get bored operating in such a targeted lane. My average day working at an agency was a helluva lot different from role in in-house communications (maybe one day I’ll doing something on a typical agency day).

Now that I’ve peeled the curtain back and let you look in, do you think you’re cut out for PR work? Or if you’re already working in the profession, how does your day stack up against mine?