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.
“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!”
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.)
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.
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…)
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.
AtP2: The beginning of the end
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?)
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
AtP2: With Great Transparency Comes Great Responsibility
When the masks come off, the rules change. When a mask comes off after 44 years, the game changes, and we can learn something in the process.
Spider-Man’s mask was so different in its time, because it covered the whole face. No open eyes, no exposed jutting jowl. It was the perfect cover. Stan Lee needed that mask to be an all-enveloping cocoon for his angst-ridden teen hero, still developing and finding his way.
If you haven’t picked up a comic an issue of episodic graphic literature in quite a while, keep an ear out for this development: the mask comes off.
This might not rise (or fall) to the level of coverage over the re-launch of Batwoman as a lesbian, nor any of the other “shocking” comic revelations of the last few years. But it might be more instructive.
The seven-issue “Civil War” series, launched in May, sees Marvel’s writers taking on the topical issue of civil liberties.
Following a showdown between a group of superheroes and supervillains in which hundreds of innocent civilians are killed, the government passes the Super-Hero Registration Act, requiring all superheroes to reveal their identities and register as “living weapons of mass destruction.”
Marvel’s roster of invincible crime fighters is split into two bitterly opposed factions, with one camp — championed by the likes of Spiderman — in favour of the new law and the other, including Captain America and his ilk, refusing to relinquish anonymity.
“It’s about which side you are on and why you think you are right,” said Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada.
The biggest gain in transparency comes in the department of trust.
The biggest pain in transparency comes as you get judged not just for what you do, but for what you don’t.
Once others know where you have been, and what opportunities for “good” you have passed up, you are accountable for sins of omission, not just commission. Without the mask, a tired and hurt Peter Parker could whistle past danger and not be faulted for righting the wrong. Not anymore.
It will be interesting to see how the comics’ world deals with the new reality: With great transparency, comes great responsibility.
Happy 1st Blogiversary to Steven Silvers over at Scatterbox. Steven’s one of those guys that isn’t worried about momentum or schedules. He just writes very profound things and doesn’t pad them with filler. He’s a must-read.
Here’s a link to his first post in the archive, talking about the San Francisco 49ers’ media training debacle.
When I was in my teens, I fell in love with the Omen trilogy. Okay, not “in love” as in “watch me burn puppies and mutilate my flesh,” but more alone the lines of appreciation for good storytelling and mastery of suspense. Here was a movie that used very subtle clues and cues, and a wicked soundtrack to scare the bejeesus out of you.
Then they had to ruin it all with a re-make.
I’ve got nothing against the actors involved — I think Liev Schrieber and Julia Stiles are okay, if not a little young to replace Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. I haven’t seen it, but one telling clue indicates to me that this is nothing more than marketing gone amuck.
The thing that got me about the original trilogy was the sly use of the biblical undertones. The way the plot rolled out and used prophecy made your hairs stand up. Not that I for one minute believed that an Antichrist would show up like that, but any scary tale that borrows a couple of millenia of backstory gets my vote.
I don’t think we’re going to break any new ground with the remake, and I base that on the timing. The first hint I ever had of the movie was the poster:
Coming, 06/06/06.
This was not a movie that was begging for a remake. It was not flawed in its execution. It was not time to revisit the theme. Instead, it’s as though some marketing genius figured that 06/06/06 would be a great release date for a movie — now let’s go option a script! Already I have misgivings that this thing is being rushed to meet the release date, and won’t live up to the meager potential. Seriously, would you go to see a remade “Omen” if it came out on Memorial Day?
What’s this mean for you? Timing can be an issue for communicators. When you speak (and stay silent) can be an important factor concerning your effectiveness. Are you running beer ads opposite the Super Bowl? Are you planning an event or grand opening on a day when the media is already booked out with other coverage?
However, timing is icing. It does not fill you up, and does not guarantee success. A perfectly-timed piece of crap is… well… you can polish it, but it still stinks.
(Disclaimer: 06/06 is my birthday. That’s not why I liked the original movie, however.)
Update: Ebert didn’t entirely dislike it. Three out of four stars.