We've Moved!

This blog has officially moved to our new website at www.gaiapr.com/blog. See you there!

Are You a New Dork?

There's something to be said for a company that thinks up a clever and relevant video. Hats off to Grasshopper.com (the virtual phone company) for a fun video that speaks to their target audience - New Dorks. Enjoy!

Notes from the Ombudsman: How to Get Noticed at the Editorial Desk

Hats off to the Washington Post Ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, for his gem of an article from Sunday's paper which provides tips on how to potentially get published in the editorial section of the outlet, particularly the Letters to the Editor page.

Alexander notes that, "...newspapers inform, but they also incite. And nothing embodies the First Amendment like a riotous exchange of views on the opinion pages." Isn't that the truth! Admittance into the always hot opinion section of national papers is always high the list for many organizations and individuals that have a stake in our communities and want their voices heard.

If you or your organization has a hot topic to address and think it should be in the Washington Post (or other high visibility media outlets) consider this: You have less than a 4 percent chance that it will get published.

For perspective, the Post receives an average of 300 letters to the editor a day, or more than 109,000 a year. Only about 3,900 are selected for publication; roughly 75 a week. Fear not! Alexander has some tips to share that might get your entry noticed...

According to Alexander, the way into the hearts of the Post's editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, is to do the following:

• If something in The Post stirs you, sound off with a letter to the editor;
• do it fast;
• be concise and;
• if it makes sense, send it Friday afternoon.

This is good solid advice that pretty much holds true for most media outlets with national reach. It's one of the most honest list of tips I've seen on this topic in a while and recommend trying them out next time you have an issue to raise with the Washington Post or others.

BBC has a Sense of Humor

If it were only this easy...!

When Bad Things Happen to a Good Company

Crisis communicators are pitching themselves as commentators today due to the big news from Japan. Toyota, one the world’s largest brands, is suffering its first big PR crisis all due to mangled communications. By issuing a recall on two-thirds of their inventory on the road without clearly informing their employees of talking points and the resolution process, Toyota has badly bruised their reputation.

The issue began last fall after an accident involving a sticky gas pedal killed a carload of passengers. Why didn’t they act sooner to solve the problem and then use transparent communications with employees and customers? It’s anyone’s guess.

The current crisis for this company will cost them in the hundreds of millions of dollars and that’s not to mention the loss in reputation. This has left sales teams scratching their heads, angry customers and embarrassed Toyota executives. There is one place that we know consumers are looking for information – the Toyota website. According to Alexa.com, traffic to the Toyota.com site has increased 20% in one day. Just three month ago it was down 3%.

The lesson in this?
• Solve problems as they happen
• Be transparent
• Coordinate both internal and external communications
• Pay close attention to your website information – it’s the front door to the company
• It may cost money to recall product, but reviving a brand is just as costly

Unbreakable? Perhaps Not....

A friend of mine on Facebook posted this video and I couldn’t help but comment on the lesson that it provides for every organization promoting a product or service. In the video, a BBC reporter has stopped by a booth at CES 2010 to test a phone that is termed “unbreakable” by the CEO he’s interviewing. Gulp. Needless to say, the reporter does break the phone much to the chagrin of an embarrassed executive. Back to the drawing board for marketing wordsmiths at Company X! It’s a good lesson for all of us who are responsible for crafting messages. If I had to create a highway sign out of this it would read: Alert! Superlatives and adjectives can kill the best of plans. Use judiciously and at your own risk.

Giving Thanks to Dorothy Boyd

This year has been a real roller coaster from an unpredictable economy to wacky events including Balloon Boy and the fall of Tiger Woods. Regardless of larger events, a few things remain the same – we are still moving forward, innovating and taking calculated risks. There is no shortage of people who have seized the economic downturn to venture out on their own whether by choice or circumstance. I love my profession and decided to make the leap this year – why not? However, the one thing that made a difference in the venture was having a few "Dorothy Boyd’s" with me. You may recall the character of Dorothy played by the effervescent Renee Zellweger in the 1996 box office hit Jerry McGuire. Dorothy has the tenacity and courage to forge a new path regardless of what comes her way. Well, I have a few Dorothy’s on my team and I’d like to thank them all – you know who you are. Happy New Year!

Intelligence Slideshow: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

I love this Baseline Magazine slide show for it's brevity and great advice. My favorite slide is the last - sell dreams, not products. What's your favorite?

Ecoist – Putting a New Twist on a Used Wrapper

Just this past weekend, I managed to drop by a VirtuArte trunk show and pick up a few unique holiday gifts for family and a few special friends. The founder of the company, Debbie Myers, is a former international business executive who has a passion for hand-crafted traditional arts and textiles from the developing world. She has carefully selected each artist for her collection and can recite the journey that each piece has made to the developed world's e-commerce marketplace.

While all of VirtuArte’s inventory is spectacular and mostly eco-friendly, I fell immediately in love with a brand called Ecoist, “Founded in 2004, Ecoist develops unique gifts and fashion accessories for the eco-minded individual.” Ecoist and other VirtuArte vendors are part of a trend to turn recycled goods into fashionable must-have components of any wardrobe. Not only do these fashion goods and accessories excite green consumers, but companies like Ecoist also have a heart.

According to their site:
One of the most exciting aspects of our business is the manufacturing and the people behind our production. Ecoist is continually developing its network of eco-friendly, fair trade suppliers and manufacturers around the world, including organizations in Mexico, Peru, Chile, Brazil, and India. For example, Ecoist works with a non-profit organization in Mexico called Grupedsac (Group for the Promotion of Education and Sustainable Development) who, since 1987, has helped underprivileged citizens earn a living through projects that also aim to preserve the environment.

Thankfully, there are more eco-friendly, hand-crafted and responsible fashion options popping up each day. Let’s hope that the trend continues and this holiday season will be greener than the last.

Guest Blogger: Shane McLaughlin - Would Columbus Recognize This New World?

This new world we call digital media is a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because we can get information on anything nearly as fast as it happens. Best Buy accidentally prices TVs at $9.99 and BAM everyone and their Facebook friends are crashing the company's e-commerce engines.

But it's also a curse because we are overwhelmed with that same information. Making sense of it, verifying it, even just keeping up with it, constantly gets harder. "Drinking from a fire hose" was yesterday's allegory…it's more like "swallowing a tsunami."

I have been responsible for communications to mass audiences at several FORTUNE 500 companies, including currently as the world's largest maker of cell phones. Getting your message out effectively is no small feat. But there are some simple things you can do that will help your communication -- whether it's a press release, company-wide email, executive speech or Website overhaul -- get through.

I call them "Shane's top five ways to grab attention." Here they are.

1. Be brief. Get in and get out. Make your point in as few words as possible. In fact, I've already wasted far too many words telling you that.

2. Be unique. If people wear ties around your office, your voice will probably not sound like a Silicon-Valley startup where they break for squirt gun fights. Think about what you write and how it reflects your culture, your industry, your mission, your customers…the right voice will come naturally and it will become uniquely…you.

3. Be topical. Connect with breaking news. Use the real-world story about Bernie Madoff to underscore the importance of the ethics policy. Use a big sports win to rally the sales team during crunch time. If people are talking about it, work it into your message to make your point.

4. Be funny. Humor is not always appropriate in the workplace. But it goes a long way when it's well done and can be a great stress reliever. I once wrote a phony story on April Fool's day about how the CEO had jumped ship to become a full time roadie for the company rock band. We got flooded with LOLs from all over the company.

5. Be action-oriented. This may be last on my list, but it's most important. Because it's not only about making people read your message, it's about motivating them to take action -- whether they are a customer buying your product or a reporter giving you the cover story. Make whatever action you want people to take an obvious, glaring point in your communication…if you are compelling enough, people will respond.

Shane McLaughlin is a communications manager and executive speechwriter at Nokia's North American headquarters in White Plains, New York. He has written for the Boston Globe, PR News, Best Practices in Corporate Communications, Inc. Magazine and a variety of Web-based publications. Previously, he was a speechwriter and internal communications manager at Nextel, working on M&A communications during its merger with Sprint. He is based in New York.

Solar Decathlon Week

I can't say that we have a favorable weather forecast for opening weekend, but positive attitudes and innovative structures will surely make up for some clouds at this year's Solar Decathlon.

The Decathlon is comprised of twenty teams from colleges and universities around the world including many American universities. Each team designs and builds their home months in advance of the competition. As the Decathlon gets closer, the homes are shipped to Washington for reconstruction on the Mall for competition in ten contests.

Each energy-efficient home will compete in the following categories: Architecture, Market Viability, Engineering, Lighting Design, Communications, Comfort Zone, Hot Water, Appliances, Home Entertainment, and Net Metering.

The DOE hopes to not only demonstrating the viability, potential cost savings and flexibility of solar products, but also promotes the next generation of renewable engineers and a greener workforce. For a list of teams, see the Decathlon site!

Important Dates:
• Oct. 8-16—Teams compete in 10 contests
• Oct. 9-13—Houses are open to the public
• Oct. 15-18—Houses are open to the public
• Oct. 19-21—Teams disassemble their houses.

The Solar Decathlon houses will be open for public tours 11 a.m.¬–3 p.m. Monday–Friday and 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Please note that all homes will be closed Wed., Oct. 14.

As of this entry, it looks like Team California is ahead followed by Team Ontario. Personally, I'm less about who wins and just very happy for the public exposure to solar power and its benefits.


For more on solar energy check out the following resources:

Solar Energy Industry Association
Solar Electric Power Association
Renewable Energy World
Solar Today

Better Choices for the Table: What the Obama’s, the Windsor’s and Millions of Consumers have in Common

This week the White House made an effort to set the pace for the rest of the nation by announcing the property’s first organic garden - foodie blogs to national media ran the story with zeal. Since the beginning of the Administration, Michelle Obama has taken on the challenge of setting an example for the rest of us when it comes to healthy eating and local options for our tables. There also a subliminal message that this can help cut costs during a slow economy and generally boost spirits. However, the trend doesn’t stop at the White House gates - it is also popular overseas. The trend for local and sustainable gardening is being revived by our British friends who also inspired Eleanor Roosevelt to call American gardeners to their yards during WWII.

On the other side of the pond, London’s largest landowner, the Queen, has developed a Victory Garden in St. James Park “to bring back the flavour of those times (WWII) and encourage people to embrace the idea of growing your own.” During WWII, “Dig for Victory” was a government-led wartime campaign that turned gardening into a patriotic duty. More than 15.5 million people in Britain are already estimated to grow some of their own food and the recession has increased demand for allotments and seeds, as families turn to the soil to cut bills.

Even those of us without a community garden option are just as enthusiastic about the trend and want to take advantage of options for eating local produce. We support this healthy trend by stocking up at our local farmers markets that provide good healthy options with a lower carbon footprint. In my backyard, Alexandria, VA , a bedroom community of Washington, DC, we have over one thousand visitors to our neighborhood every Sunday from May through October - all looking for local produce and handcrafted products at the neighborhood market. I recently sat down with one of the market’s organizers to hear more about how the venture has grown. Three years ago when it started, there were a half dozen vendors and today it has expanded to almost twenty-five. According to the organizer, if it grows to thirty vendors, then it’s considered a small mid-size market. On a larger scale, DC’s Freshfarm Markets “operates 8 farmers' markets in the Chesapeake Bay region” and can demand crowds of up to 100,000 customers with recognition in national media outlets including the Wall Street Journal.

So whether you have a slice of land as small as a suburban yard, a few acres or an urban bungalow, there are options for everyone to make better choices and support the growth of healthier and local food options.

To find markets nationally go to Local Harvest

To find one of the over 200 Washington DC markets go to the Washington Post guide.

HBR In Brief: Why Sustainability Is Now the Key Driver of Innovation

I picked this (and the PDF) up from Environmental Leader today. Worth a read as they give tips on implementation and theorize a process for corporate sustainability.

Key ideas from the Harvard Business Review article by Ram Nidumolu, C.K. Prahalad, and M.R. Rangaswami

The Idea in Brief

• Sustainability isn’t the burden on bottom lines that many executives believe it to be. In fact, becoming environment-friendly can lower your costs and increase your revenues. That’s why sustainability should be a touchstone for all innovation.

• In the future, only companies that make sustainability a goal will achieve competitive advantage. That means rethinking business models as well as products, technologies, and processes.

• Becoming sustainable is a five-stage process, and each stage has its own challenges. Here’s how to tackle them and emerge from the recession ahead of the pack.

Guest Blogger: Jeanne Jennings - Maximizing Deliverability for Email Marketing

In celebration of the new month, I'm pleased to bring you a guest blogger submission by friend, colleague and email marketing guru, Jeanne Jennings (www.jeannejennings.com). For anyone who is charged with managing communictions efforts using email, the topic below sheds new light on how to minimize bounces and maximize reach using email.

Maximizing Deliverability for Email Marketing

Sending a press release via email is great – but knowing that it was delivered to the inbox of your intended recipients is even better.

If you’re sending email from your own servers or using an email service provider (ESP), there are some free tools you can use to gauge your “deliverability,” which is a fancy word for the likelihood that your messages are making it to the inbox. Knowledge is power; if you aren’t checking your deliverability on a regular basis, you might have a problem and not even know it.

To check your deliverability, you’ll need the IP address of the server sending your email (best) or the domain name that appears in your sender address. The latter only works if you’re using your own domain (“gaia.com,” “jeannejennings.com”), not if you’re using a generic domain (“aol.com,” “verizon.net,” “gmail.com”). Even if you have your own domain, it’s still good to check both that and your IP address.

If you’re sending from your own server, ask your IT team for the IP address. If not, you can still get it with just a little investigative work.

Your IP address appears in the email message header of every email you send. To find it, include yourself on the send list and wait for the email to reach your inbox.
If you’re using Outlook, you can then right click on the message in your inbox (not when it’s open full screen) and choose “Options” from the drop down menu. In the “Internet Headers” section of the Message Options box (at the bottom), scroll until you see “Received: from…” then scan for a ten digit number in brackets that looks something like this “[72.167.180.17]” – that’s the IP address of the server your email was sent from. If you’re using a different email client to read email, click on “help” to find out how to view your Internet headers and find your IP address.

If it looks like you might have a problem, contact your ESP or your in-house IT team and ask them to look into it. They can contact the owners of the blacklists that are blocking your mail and find out what about your email messages (or the email messages of others sending from your server) is causing the server to be tagged as one sending spam.

If it’s something that’s easily fixed or if they can show that it’s a “false positive” (meaning that your mail is mistakenly being identified as spam), you can clear your good name and get your messages back on track to the inbox.

To learn more about two free email deliverability tools you can check out today, read my recent column on ClickZ.

More on Jeanne Jennings
Jeanne Jennings is a leading authority and independent consultant with over 15 years of experience in the e-mail and online realm. She specializes in all aspects of e-mail marketing and publishing, from strategy through design and metrics analysis. Jeanne works with medium- to enterprise-sized organizations and is expert at helping her clients become more effective and more profitable online. She is the author of "The Email Marketing Kit: The Ultimate Email Marketer’s Bible" (SitePoint, 2007) and publisher of "The Jennings Report," a free e-mail newsletter for online marketing professionals. Visit her online at JeanneJennings.com.

Smart Grid Gold Rush: Echelon Lands First Big US Contract

Smart Grid Gold Rush: Echelon Lands First Big US Contract

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Going Green for Permission Research

I recently stumbled across a Twitter thread concerning comScore, a leading digital audience measurement organization. This thread reminded me that I haven’t been to the comScore site in a while and they are practically my neighbors here in Northern Virginia. For those of you unfamiliar with comScore they provide the following factoids on their site that help give some perspective to what they do (and how they make money!):

· comScore is a leading source of data on mobile as well as PC-based Internet usage

· comScore data are truly global – the company tracks more than 3 million unique websites worldwide and the comScore panel includes consumers from 170 countries

It was wonderful to see a front page link for the corporate social responsibility (CSR) program, as CSR often gets buried in secondary pages. It appears as though comScore, “…has partnered with Trees for the Future to plant a tree for each new person who joins PermissionResearch (a division of comScore) through the comScore Trees for Knowledge campaign.”

Digging deeper into the PermissionResearch site, I realize they have a great CSR pitch and outline very specific, and appealing, member benefits. They have software downloads (free) that range from power management software to screensavers. Additionally, there is a points-based rewards program that is a catalogue of interesting consumer products which might appeal to the CSR demographic (i.e. tents – apparently we like the outdoors a lot).

What’s in all this for comScore? Engaged research panelists that likely fit a demographic that is attractive to their customers (opinion-elites) and why, yes, trees planted to offset our carbon footprint. Hats off to comScore for developing a program that wasn’t sent to the secondary or tertiary page dungeon, clearly outlines attractive benefits for participants and also serves to move their business forward. Well done.