FIR Podcast Network

The past month has brought market and economic turmoil the likes of which we have not seen since 2008. And only one thing is certain. There will be many businesses that do not make it through the downturn.

So, what’s the smart agency head doing? Definitely not going all in with a bet on a single business line. Smart leaders are diversifying their revenue stream during this time of uncertainty. And as they do this, they have the best chance of identifying the most promising areas for growth and also being able to exit the business areas without a future.

That’s exactly what Gini Dietrich did following the crash of 2008. And since then she has built a very different business – a business that depends on a network of professionals with the range of skills necessary to drive multiple revenue streams. Diversification has been a successful strategy for Gini. And this week Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and Joseph Thornleypick up on a recent episode of Gini and Ghip Griffin‘s Agency Leadership Podcast to talk about Gini’s strategy and what others can learn from her experience.

Also on this episode, Joe asks Gini and Martin for advice on how they would respond to a pitch that struck Joe as ethically challenged and also how they react to being pitched on pitched on LinkedIn within minutes of accepting an invitation to connect with someone.

We’ll be back on January 1 with a New Year’s Resolutions episode.

Linkworthy

* The Agency Leader Podcast, Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich

* Ethical Voices, Mark McLennan

This post was first published on Inside PR.

Showing how communication benefits your organization depends on measuring what matters most—and how to turn what you learn into actionable results.

Join four Fellows of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) for a real-time conversation about what technology exists to help you measure your programs, package and present the results, and produce more complex analyses to present to leadership.  We’ll also explore non-technology means of measurement and other approaches to demonstrating that your communication efforts are paying off.

The panel, moderated by FIR host Shel Holtz, featured Amanda Hamilton-Attwell, Mary Hills, Jim Shaffer, and Angela Sinickas discussing measurement, beer, and other means of proving communication’s worth to the powers that be.

About the panel

Dr. Amanda Hamilton-Attwell, accredited by both IABC and PRSA. She is Managing Director of Business DNA, based in South Africa, which provides strategic research and consulting, including communication audits, customer service, and women’s leadership topics. She is licensed in Adobe Connect and WebEx, using these to conduct virtual professional learning and education sessions. and other focused research and training in communication skills. Her career has also included a 15-year stint as a research manager for the National Productivity Institute.

Mary Hills’ career as a marketing and communication professional has been in companies undergoing significant evolution, change, and growth. She has held leadership positions with responsibility for developing plans and schemas to support long-term growth and business sustainability goals. She has more than 20 years experience and expertise in designing and delivering training and development programs for companies and organizations, bringing theories, models, and frameworks into everyday practice. In addition to her role at HeimannHills Marketing Group, Mary serves as Adjunct Faculty in the MS – Global Strategic Communication program at Loyola University Chicago.  Mary speaks internationally and nationally on marketing, communication, standards, and practices

Jim Shaffer is a business advisor, leadership coach, author, and speaker. As leader of the Jim Shaffer Group, he helps organizations accelerate results through superior strategy execution. The Jim Shaffer Group creates hard business results by translating the business strategy to the people who need to implement it, aligning systems, processes, and culture to make the gains sustainable. Jim was an architect and leading practitioner of Towers Perrin’s (now Towers Willis Watson) change management consulting practice. He designed and produced the IABC Academy Course, “Managing Change Communication to Drive Results and Value.” Some of his change management clients have included: Abbott, ConAgra Foods, FedEx, IBM, ITT, Mayo Clinic, Medtronic, Owens Corning, Pfizer, Toyota.

Angela Sinickas is the founder of Sinickas Communications, which has worked with companies, organizations, and governments in 32 countries on six continents. Her clients include 25% of the Forbes Top 100 largest global companies. Before starting her own consulting firm, she held positions from editor to vice president in for-profit and government organizations and worked as a senior consultant and practice leader at Hewitt and Mercer. She is the author of a manual, How to Measure Your Communication Programs (now in its third edition), and chapters in several books. Her 50+ articles in professional journals can be found on her website,www.sinicom.com. Her work has been recognized with 20 international-level Gold Quill Awards from IABC, plus her firm was named IABC Boutique Agency of the Year in 2015. She holds a BS degree in Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MS in Leaders...

Neville Hobson joins Shel Holtz for the December installment of “The Hobson & Holtz Report.” The stories Neville and Shel covered include…

* The passing of PR fixture Jack O’Dwyer

* Marketers are turning their attention to messaging apps

* Not everyone is free to leave Facebook, even if they want to

* The death of keywords (or is it?) as audiences become key to targeting in search

* Rising Instagram stars post fake sponsored posts to get brands’ attention

* What we learned about GDPR in 2018

* Research reveals how journalists can rebuild trust in media; could it work in business?

* Dan York reports on the Quora data breach, rural connectivity, free (for now) LinkedIn Learning courses, more on Facebook’s woes, Slack banning users with links to Iran, and a new podcast all-in-one mixing desk.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

About Neville Hobson

Neville Hobson was co-host of The Hobson & Holtz Report for over 10 years. For over 15 years, Neville has been a voice of experience and influence when it comes to speaking about digital technologies, disruptive change in workplaces and marketplaces, relevant trends to pay close attention to, and what it all means for your business. His experiences embrace deep understanding and subject-matter expertise in contemporary business issues that include social, digital and cognitive technologies, connecting that with a career in traditional public relations, marketing communication, employee compensation and benefits communication, and investor relations. Based in the Thames Valley some 30 miles west of London, Neville works either from his home office or from a client’s location; or from wherever he has a good network connection.

Links from this week’s episode:

* Jack O’Dwyer, Chronicler of PR, Dies

* Going where the customer is: Marketers are coming for messaging apps

* Why Marketers Need to Use Ads in Messaging App

* Tips for Marketing through Messaging Apps

* Why Should Anyone Believe Facebook Anymore?

* Facebook says companies got access to data only after user permission

* NAACP Joins Growing List of Civil Rights Groups Criticizing Facebook

* Facebook’s Sandberg cites need to do more after reports of Russia meddling

* ‘We want these platforms to be healthy’: Why top marketers won’t quit Facebook after 2018 scandals

* ‘They don’t care’: Facebook factchecking in disarray as journalists push to cut ties

* Cost to walk away from Facebook for a year? More than $1,000, new study finds

In the final episode of 2018, Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich discuss what it takes to move from being a solopreneur or small team to becoming an actual agency.

They cover some of the mindset challenges, the process work needed, and other advice on overcoming the hurdle of becoming a “real” business.

[read the transcript]

Don’t Feed the Giants

First, up on Inside PR this week, Martin points to Farhad Manjou’s final “State of the Art” column for the New York Times. Some smart advice for these digital times:

* Don’t just look at the product. Look at the business model.

* Avoid Feeding the Giants

* Adopt Late. Slow Down

Don’t Look Now, But Your Apps See You

Another blockbuster story from the New York Times (they seem to be making this routine.) This time, the Times stripped away any illusion that we may have had that those give us your locationopt-ins are being used only for the purposes we think they are. Scary stuff.

Linkworthy

* How to Survive the Next Era of Tech (Slow Down and Be Mindful), Farhad Manjou

* Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret, JENNIFER VALENTINO-DeVRIES, NATASHA SINGER, MICHAEL H. KELLER and AARON KROLIK

Inside PR 530 – Breaking Up is hard to do first appeared on Inside PR

This episode is a wrap for the Legacy series, in which Mitchell Levy (http://aha.pub/MitchellLevy), TEDx speaker and the AHA Guy at AHAthat (https://AHAthat.com), and co-host Lisa McDonald (http://aha.pub/LisaMcDonald), author, motivational speaker, TV and radio host, and blogger (http://livingfearlesslywithlisa.com), exchanged amazing messages for the month. Together with their phenomenal guests, they gave us great takeaways about life and how we can be impactful to others every day. This time, Lisa grabs her chance to interview Mitchell on his thoughts about legacy.

Mitchell imparts his ideas and what he considers to be the deeper meaning of legacy. He thinks that servant leadership is a good way of doing business; it turns out that what he’s doing feels good for him, that it feels good in the heart. He also says that it’s good to be someone who touches people’s lives in so many different ways. We can influence other people in such a way that will significantly change their lives positively.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from the episode. See more in the “AHA Moments from Thought Leader Life” eBooks available in the social media-enabled eBook platform, AHAthat: https://AHAthat.com.

* A #Legacy is a nice way for you to think about yourself, who you are, and how you act. Have you tried reflecting on yourself? If not, start NOW! #TLL http://aha.pub/MitchellLevy

* Take stock of who thinks about you and how they think about you. If you want a positive #Legacy, think about how that permeates in their lives, whether it’s business or personal. #TLL http://aha.pub/MitchellLevy

* A person who is very consistent, congruent, and authentic is someone you’d have immense respect for. #Legacy #TLL http://aha.pub/LisaMcDonald

* It always feels good to deliver more —to under promise yet over deliver. It’s good to have someone who will continually remind you that its what you should do! #Legacy #TLL http://aha.pub/MitchellLevy

* #Legacy is a piece of how you think day to day and what people you are encouraging to take those nuggets and make them their own, whether they will remember your name directly or not.#TLL http://aha.pub/MitchellLevy

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.

Two conversations anchor this week’s podcast. Jen Phillips and Sherrilynne Starkie chat with host Shel Holtz about the real impact of fake news on public relations and what practitioners can do about it, and Sharon McIntosh and Shel riff on internal communication predictions for 2019. Also in this week’s episode:

* FIR made three lists of must-listen podcasts in one week

* Edelman’s Digital Trends 2019 is a long but important read

* For the first time, social media is a bigger news source for Americans than print newspapers

* There’s some fun to be had in an internal communication contest from Contact Monkey

* Google will shut down Google+ sooner than expected

* Voice messaging has come to Instagram

* Some useful observations about voice tech

* “Brand purpose” is the marketing word(s) of the year (according to the ANA)

* Dan York says he may give up on Facebook. Dan’s report also covers the Intelligent Edge, Facebook’s “Today In” feature, YouTube Stories, and TechMeme leaderboards.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog.

About Sharon McIntosh

Sharon McIntosh is president of And Then Communications. She also co-hosts EE Voice on the FIR Podcast Network. With more than two decades of communications experience, she has a passion for creating and executing new ideas to drive employee engagement at companies both large and small. Most recently Sharon served as PepsiCo’s vice president of Global Internal Communications, overseeing the company’s efforts to connect with its more than 274,000 employees worldwide. She and her team launched a number of innovative employee initiatives, including the company’s first social media training (SMART U), a social tool to share internal news externally and PepsiCo’s award-winning employee ambassador program. She and her team also developed a communications strategy to support the company’s first comprehensive, global and multi-year transformation initiative. Before joining PepsiCo in 2004, Sharon spent seven years at Sears. Among her greatest contributions there, she launched a marketing strategy for life events, ran user experience for the company’s e-commerce site and introduced the company’s first intranet. Prior to Sears, she worked at Waste Management, publishing more than 14 annual reports for various business units, managing shareholder meetings, drafting senior executive speeches and handling media relations. Sharon graduated with a B.A. in journalism from Marquette University and an M.A. from DePaul University. She lives in Norwalk, CT.

About Jennifer Zingsheim Phillips

Jennifer Zingsheim Phillips is partner at 4L Strategies. Before returning to her practice, she was director of marketing communications at CARMA. She previously ran 4L Strategies, consulting and providing content development for a variety of industries. She has worked in communications and public affairs for 20 years. Her background includes work in electoral politics, government, lobbying, and public affairs PR work.

About Sherrilynne Starkie

Sherrilynne Starkie is IABC Ottawa’s past president with an international reputation as a PR social media pioneer. She is an independent consultant and in the past, has held leadership agency roles in Canada, the UK, and the USA.  She’s a prolific blogger, a frequent contributor and, until now, only a sometimes podcaster. Have an idea for the show or want to connect? Reach out to Sherrilynne on LinkedIn and Twitter. Have an idea for the show or want to connect? Reach out to Sherrilynne on 

Eric Schnure is the consummate storyteller. A former White House speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore with 20 years of experience counseling executives on messaging, Eric knows how to tell a great story. He also knows what makes storytelling such a powerful internal comms tool.

We’d gladly spend an afternoon sipping tea (or something stronger) on the porch with Eric, but we settled for a visit to the EE Voice virtual HQ for our last podcast of 2018. Of course, he launched right in with two stories from his White House days (okay, we asked), then reminded us that storytelling is “not just spinning a yarn.”

“I could stay here with you all day telling stories,” he said, “but it might not move the ball forward in any constructive way other than we may have a really entertaining day, which will only make tomorrow busier.”

In this episode of EE Voice, we talk with Eric about how to construct a compelling story, how to foster a storytelling culture in the workplace and how to get leaders more comfortable telling stories. Tune in and learn:

* What narrative storytelling really means

* What Eric calls “The Big 3” of storytelling

* How to use conflict and other narrative elements

* What makes a good story persuasive

* How to use humor in storytelling

It’s a fascinating and informative conversation with one of the best storytellers we know. Enjoy!

 

Perhaps the most important B2B marketing story of 2018 is the invasion of our privacy, and how companies have been so cavalier in abusing the data that their customers give them. This invasion has happened through a combination of several circumstances:

* In the case of Facebook’s failures, the combination of a lack of transparency and an immature and misguided management team.

* In the case of Google,not being truthful about what its incognito browsing mode is actually doing and how it is doing it. This is from a report from one of Google’s competitors, DuckDuckGo, which found that Chrome personalizes search results even when users aren’t signed in. 

* Abusing smartphone app permissions, as a new study by the New York Times revealed this week. Apps were tracking users’ movements and despite claims that identifying information had been removed, the Times reporters were able to track down a few users and interview them for the story. How they did their research is a fascinating look at how difficult one’s privacy can be to protect today.

Certainly, next year is shaping up to be a watershed moment in resolving these micro-targeting issues and being more parsimonious in how our data privacy is protected. We welcome your thoughts on the matter, along with a few suggestions for marketers to better audit what their developers are doing with respect to privacy. 

 

In this week’s podcast, Chip Griffin and Gini Dietrich explain why agencies might want to avoid the prolific production of proposals for prospects.

Instead, Gini lays out the example of how her own agency handles the business development process to build stronger client relationships.

Along the way, the co-hosts explore a range of challenges in the business develop, client relationship, and proposal creation process — along with practical advice on how to handle them. And a few funny stories along the way.

[read the transcript]