Author Archive

July 23, 2007: 8:34 am: External PR

New post on Public Relations over at Occam’s RazR. It’s the kind of thinking I used to do over here, but it’s over there. Go get it.

Update: Also a companion piece at Strumpette.

January 25, 2007: 11:03 am: Housekeeping, Personal

I suppose it’s only fair.

I’m blogging now over here at Occam’s Razr.

Enjoy.

December 21, 2006: 9:01 am: Personal

In a shocking twist of logic, former public relations blogger Ike Pigott was not named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

Reached for comment, Pigott said “I tried to get in on the action, but forgot my password. By the time I hacked my own server and found my WordPress login, there were no more pictures of that blank computer screen to link to. If only I had kept blogging through December…”

As the only blogger not recognized, Pigott will not be invited to his share of the prize money, expected to be split among the hundreds of PR bloggers who have stepped up to claim the award.

Nobody“They all deserve it. They are all so original,” he said. “I know this came about because the editors had a hard time sorting it all out, with 26 finalists. I was hoping they’d pick Nobody. I’m still one of those!”

November 14, 2006: 6:57 am: Blogiversaries, Personal

It’s been one year of blogging for Andrea Weckerle over at New Millenium PR.

She jumped right in, and was always kind enough to comment and share her opinions and experiences. (That’s why she’s in the Sez Who? section.)

November 3, 2006: 5:42 am: Blogiversaries, Personal

And a happy first birthday at that, for Kami Huyse over at Communication Overtones!!

Out of the gate, she started with a purpose and a perspective. If you care about the future of PR, add her to the daily read list.

August 14, 2006: 5:49 am: Helpful Hints, Personal

Before I leave my post as a regular contributor to the blogosphere, I wanted to leave a parting gift. Few of you are aware that I am the author of the greatest pick-up line in history — nor its lesson in communication theory.

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

Boy, we all sweat over that one, don’t we? To know that a potential lifetime relationship, be it personal or business, swings in the balance of a single encounter. It’s enough to make you sick. Some people do get sick, as a matter of fact. It’s not necessary, though… if you understand the science of first impressions, and the most important part: Some might call it “The Icebreaker,” but essentially we’re talking about a pick-up line.

Whatever your application — phone scripts — sales pitches — some are designed to win another over, some to get your foot in the door. Some are milked to death, and some are cheesy. You’ve probably seen a list or two of the worst ones in your e-mail. We all know what makes them bad, but don’t always recognize what makes them good.

With that in mind, let me tell you about the best pick-up line ever
(more…)

August 13, 2006: 2:51 pm: Housekeeping, Personal

Time is winding down on Accentuate the Positive, and I can’t leave without saying thanks to a few of the people who deserve it.

In no particular order:

Thanks to B.L. Ochman and Jeremy Pepper, for doing what you do so well, and inspiring me to enter the blogodrome (whether you knew it or not.)

Thanks to Peter Himler, for taking the time to say hi, and showing the real power of the flat world.

Thanks to the Texans, John Wagner, Scott Baradell, and Kami Huyse. Three very different sorts of blogs, with three independent perspectives and audiences. I look forward to my occasional invasions and incursions into your comment boxes. I will in fact mess with Texas.

Thanks to Allan Jenkins, Eric Eggertson, and the rest of the Nobodies. If you don’t know who you are, that’s okay. You’re nobody. (And Eric — Accentuate the Positive, 3.0 is available…)

Thanks to Steven Silvers, Todd Defren, and Andrea Weckerle for bringing wicked smarts to a profession that doesn’t always call for it.

Thanks to Ben and Jackie and Steve Rubel for finding cool niches and keeping them fresh.

Thanks also to Gary Goldhammer and Terry Heaton — two very different people who are trying to make sense of the future of journalism.

Thanks as well to all my Birmingham Peeps — thanks to the Combloggerator, I’ve saved so much time wasting time! And thanks to Drew for being the coolest preacher ever, and not saying anything about my quoting Janis Joplin in our Galatians class.

To all the others who should have been here, but weren’t: I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll amend this later.

Oh yeah — why the blog-freeze? I’ve been hired as the Communications and Government Relations Director for the American Red Cross, Southeast Service Area. I’m the key support for both of those functions for 116 chapters in five states. Including Florida. In hurricane season.

Simply put, there will be no freelancing, and no seminars anytime in the near future. Positive Position Media Consulting will emerge from mothballs one day years from now, but for the time being needs to be dormant. As for the blog, I need to focus my attention on learning the new job and the tasks at hand.

(Yes Kami — I will still comment from time to time. That goes for all of you.)

I’ve got e-mails for a lot of you, but if you want to send me anything, try ike AT pigott DOT name. I’ll be sure to bug as many of you as possible if I ever start blogging again.

And just for fun — be sure to link to this post. If I’m going out, I’m going out strong!

(Stay tuned — your parting gift arrives tomorrow.)

Ike.

August 7, 2006: 8:08 am: Big Blunders

It can get you in trouble, especially when the cards are stacked against you to begin with.

Floyd Landis — who claims to not know how one of his eight Tour de France doping tests came back fishy — now thinks his immediate scramble for an explanation has done more harm than good.

In more desperate straits than when everyone counted him out of the Tour before Stage 17, Landis has been fired by his Phonak team and the Tour de France no longer considers him its champion. Landis said his biggest mistake has been offering daily excuses for his positive test.

“I’ve been catching a lot of grief in the press: ‘Floyd has a new excuse, a new reason for what happened,’ ” he said. “This is a situation where I’m forced to defend myself in the media. It would never have happened if UCI and WADA had followed their own rules.”

His own team has fired him, so it would seem he’s on his own with regards to finding and funding someone to help him navigate future public statements.

July 26, 2006: 6:45 pm: From the Front, Personal

There’s a reason the blogging has been slow-going.

I’ve been offered a position with the Southeast regional office with the American Red Cross.

There are some ideas in the hopper — and I promise to leave all (twelve) of you with a parting gift:

“How I wrote the greatest pickup line in history, and its applications to PR.”

(How’s that for a tease?)

July 13, 2006: 6:41 am: Blogiversaries, Personal

A Happy 2-Year Blogiversary to the hardest working man in the Capitol!

Tex Turner over at Watching Washington has a stellar resume, and it seems like just yesterday that the Watchdog started barking in cyberspace. (It all started here.)

He’s done a lot more with pod-and-vod-casting than I have, and if you’re not one of his online minions, then you ought to be!

July 3, 2006: 3:37 pm: Helpful Hints

Somewhere, somehow, somebody is taking advantage of somebody else. It’s human nature.

We like to see those scammers busted, which is why “consumer action” pieces do so well in journalism circles, particularly on television (and especially during sweeps.)

It used to be that if some local hustler was sticking it to the people, the Action News Team would take them down, and that would be the end of that. Welcome to the internet age, where the boundaries are invisible — and what some weasel does in your name can haunt you across all borders.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the poor response from local Jiffy Lube managers in Southern California. Employees in their shops had been busted for the third year in a row by local LA news.

Thanks to the internet, the effects of the muddied “Jiffy Lube” name are threatening every franchisee — including one who took the time to comment:

I am a Jiffy Lube franchisee and would like to say that this type of negative feedback is very disturbing to say the least. There are hundreds of separate franchises within the Jiffy Lube organization and many of them take a tremendous amount of pride in the service that their company provides to the customer. Speaking for myself, I am outraged that these individuals have done something to destroy the credibility and trust myself and my employees have worked so very hard to build. It is unfair, however, that the honest franchisees are taking a beating for a mistake of one. I have always said that it doesn’t matter what the name of the business is, what matters is the people who are inside of it. Customers should always pay attention to what is being done to their car because it is a big investment and you want to feel good about your purchase. It doesn’t hurt to ask to see old parts or ask what is going to be done. You will develop trust with a good facility after a couple of visits.

Well done, Chad. Here’s what he did right:

  1. The first inclination for most people is to shoot the messenger. However, Chad doesn’t blame KNBC for reporting it — nor the person who uplinked it to YouTube — nor this humble blogger for commenting about it. Chad’s anger is rightly aimed at the weasels whose shameless greed tarred an entire brand name from coast to coast.
  2. Chad isolated the offender, declaring the autonomy of the independent franchisee.
  3. Chad spoke for himself, and only for himself. True honesty.
  4. Chad provided sound advice for future customers to prevent their getting bilked, wherever they might be.

That’s a lot of good reputation management in a small package. And most importantly, it is now there for all to see. In a few months, as people start to Google “Jiffy Lube scam” or some such permutation, they will find the other side of the story, helping repair the good name of hundreds of mechanics who otherwise might feel the sting of stigma for years to come.

July 2, 2006: 6:03 am: Blogiversaries, Personal

Start the fireworks early for Jeremy Pepper, who celebrates three years of blogging at POP! PR Jots!

His abuse of the exclamation point aside, Jeremy is a voice of reason in public relations. He asks a lot of the questions that need to be asked, and doesn’t drink the kool-aid.

June 22, 2006: 8:19 am: Blogiversaries, Personal

A Happy Two-Year Blogiversary to Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications in Boston and San Francisco.

Thanks to the Wayback MachineArchive, you can see the birth of PR-Squared, before its very recent move.

June 21, 2006: 10:24 am: Personal, Rants

Make that “walking” ugh.

The doc confirmed it: walking pneumonia. I’m out for a few days.

And for those in the know? No news.

June 16, 2006: 12:21 pm: Personal

There are times when truth is stranger than fiction — and often funnier.

I am in Destin, Florida, having made a Red Cross presentation to the Alabama Bar Association’s Environmental Symposium. The conference is in Florida because Hurricane Katrina limited the number of venues along the Alabama Gulf.

I asked the staff at the Sandestin Resort where my conference was, and as it happens, they sent me to the Alabama Trial Lawyers’ Conference by mistake. There was no recognizable signage, no one with an agenda, and only one person hovering around the breakfast buffet in the hall.

Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.

He wasn’t sure if I was in the right place either. It seems everyone from that conference had already split into two sessions: the Prayer Breakfast, and the Emerging Leaders’ Breakfast. And, in a moment of cosmic clarity and significance, Roy Moore was late for both.

You can’t make this sort of thing up.