Ms. InterPReted

Included in Kelly’s and Mary Beth’s discussion with Koray: 

• What the citizen experience has been in the UK with the COVID-19 onslaught … being some 2-3 weeks ahead of the United States in absorbing the realities of the situation
• How the PRCA’s new COVID-19 Task Force is on the forefront of the industry to produce in-depth resources to the industry – beyond just communications issues but also core business issues, including for the agency community
• How the PRCA is extending meaningful professional community and a supportive network to its individual and organizational network, across countries, sectors and situational challenges in the industry
• The importance of mental health and wellness and the PRCA’s proactive response to at-risk communities as well as for all industry professionals who are being impacted in such sudden, sweeping ways
  • The PRCA has a free-access Mental Health Tool Kit to provide resources for agency owners, line managers and front-line staff
• How the PRCA will take full steps to help mitigate serious outcomes for practitioners and agencies alike
• How the PRCA works to impact governmental policy that affects practitioners in their ability to do their jobs, to compete and to perform the most ethical, effective work for their organizations and clients
• And more.

Links:

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag
• Follow PRCA: https://www.prca.org.uk/ 
• Follow the PRCA COVID-19 Task Force Support / Resources: https://www.prca.org.uk/covid-19
•  Locate PRCA’s Mental Health Toolkit
• Follow Koray Camgoz on LinkedIn: 
  • Twitter: @KorComms
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/korayc/   
• Discover Fletcher Marketing PR: https://www.fletchermarketingpr.com/ 
• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR https://twitter.com/fletcherpr 
• Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher https://twitter.com/kdfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest https://twitter.com/MaryBethWest 

Included in Kelly’s and Mary Beth’s discussion with Molly and Jules:

• What to do as an independent practitioner, when faced with sudden loss of bookings and business
• How a “rising tide lifts all ships” mentality in the PR profession and a sense of connectivity between public relations professionals will help our community of colleagues 
• Why being bold and calling out bad PR examples is important for the improvement of the profession to elevate trust and ethical codes in public relations
• Entities doing PR wrong or right during COVID-19: WeWork, Gov. Cuomo, Texas Roadhouse, the tourism / hospitality industry, mega-brands versus small-businesses (among other examples)
• What happens when there are disparate value systems, mixed motives and disconnects between leaders and staff
• How PR needs to be mobilized to fight fear that’s pervasive in teams, organizations, communities and entire societies right now
• What it means to “have the difficult conversation” to acknowledge from the beginning of a crisis situation that a crisis is – indeed – happening (and how skipping this key incremental step is a major mistake)
• Why information-hoarding is one the most common – yet most damaging – behaviors leaders engage in, that damages (or even destroys) trust
• What roles ACCOUNTABILITY and TRANSPARENCY play in the current crisis
• Is COVID-19 the PR industry's “moment of truth” to prove our worth in serving our clients / employers AND the public… and if it is that moment, are we making effective use of it?
• Observations of small and regional PR firms being the culprits of bad PR pitches tied specifically to coronavirus
• How LEADERSHIP is the common (yet uncommon) thread that must undergird strategy and basic good decision-making 
• What it means when “doing the right thing” can mean completely different realities to completely different entities (such as a commercial retail interest versus public health official)
• Use of humor as a coping mechanism by individuals (such as on social media) versus as a connectivity tactic by brands in their advertising
• How strategic communicators should help brands stay human and real in this crisis
• How COVID-19 is going to force companies to build better, stronger cultures of communications
• How being labeled an “essential” versus a “non-essential” business factors into messaging and decision-making during COVID-19
• And much more.

Links:

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag across social media
• Follow Julia Angelen Joy
  • Twitter: @JuliaAngelenPR
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliaangelen/  
  • #PrimeTimePRchat
• Follow Molly McPherson
  • Twitter: @MollyMcPherson
  • LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mollymcpherson/
  • Confident Communications podcast: 
    • https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/confident-communications/id1441897190 
• Discover Fletcher Marketing PR
• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR 
• Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest 

Chad Hatmaker's on-point advice for employers – which PR teams must bear in mind as well as they think through employee-focused communications strategies – spans a diverse gamut, tied to passage of recent COVID-19 Aid legislation. 

Included in the discussion:

• How remote work / virtual team transitions are impacting workplaces in critical ways
• How the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) (signed into law March 18 and taking effect April 1) is already impacting the workplace, in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, with caregiver and emergency paid sick leave components. (FFCRA “provides for expanded FMLA and Emergency Paid Leave in certain limited circumstances related to the Coronavirus pandemic,” as noted on Chad’s blog – tnemploymentlawblog.com)
• The law of unintended consequences?... How the funding of these mandates expected by employers with fewer than 500 employees will impact companies in the short-term versus long-term
• Aspects of consideration for those who are self-employed 
• How much risk employers may be in for, relative to employee lawsuits down the pike
• Anti-retaliation considerations and potential employee claims that employers must bear in mind to avoid legal risk
• A cursory overview of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act
• How recent Pew Research statistics on teleworkers and the COVID-19 “new normal” on Work from Home #WFH arrangements may permanently change the workplace landscape
• Discussion of whether working from home may or may not be a part later of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), relative to a “reasonable accommodation”
• How the public relations profession is well-suited to telework platforms and how the new-normal of work-from-home arrangements may unleash an upending of traditional workplaces, both in the PR profession and in countless other knowledge-based fields
• The Legal Side vs The PR Side: Chad’s take on how both disciplines need to work together, whether in response to COVID-19 or in any crisis
• And much more.

Links:

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag
• Follow Chad Hatmaker of Woolf McClane
  • Twitter: @JChadHatmaker
  • Chad Hatmaker’s blog, “Tennessee Employment Law”
  • LinkedIn
• Discover Fletcher Marketing PR
• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR 
•  Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest 

Kelly and Mary Beth delve into the general considerations all management teams should consider when undertaking crisis preparedness … with the first mandate being – Don’t Delay!  Included in the discussion:

• How human reactions such as denial and “paralysis by analysis” universally stymie the best crisis-planning intentions… and how to overcome initial inertia;
• Why there is a major difference between having an operational crisis plan and a communications-driven crisis plan (including both internal and external stakeholders) … and that you can’t have an adequate plan until you have bothcomponents;
• How Kelly and Mary Beth have managed crisis consultations in their careers for a wide range of clients, including Mary Beth’s own former PR firm’s business crisis, when her office was destroyed in an office fire, requiring the displacement of her full agency team for nearly two months;
• Ways in which crisis communications planning have changed in recent decades, evolving from the “traditional media” paradigm to the past two decades’ far more dynamic, complicated and Citizen Journalism-driven platform of digital media;
• Critical considerations of IT systems back-ups, off-site employee work continuity, adequate insurance coverages and other operational / practical aspects for businesses of all sizes / scales to keep in mind;
• How interdepartmental, interdisciplinary inclusion across management team functions must be integrated in the planning and execution process;
• Why having employee contact-with-media and employee social media policies are so important;
• And much more.

Links:

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag
• Discover Fletcher Marketing PR 
• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR 
• Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest 

Kelly and Mary Beth have a candid chat about #EthicsWashing and how it’s damaging the public relations industry – particularly when PR industry associations are the ones doing it. Included in the discussion:

• How the #MeToo movement’s authenticity demands have changed some aspects of the automotive industry; How #Greenwashing, #Pinkwashing and #Gaywashing have joined the line-up of authenticity fails under public scrutiny… and why walking-the-talk is so essential;
• How #EthicsWashing is the latest iteration of the same phenomenon;
• How some simple questions Mary Beth asked the Global Alliance – originally in December 2019 – snowballed into an “international incident”;
• Background of what the Global Alliance is and confusion about its mission versus known deliverables / impacts;
• What other kinds of non-transparency behaviors by PRSA are transpiring that undermine member trust (and PRSA’s own ability to lead its U.S.-based membership in a credible manner);
• What value systems of accountability are supposed to look like … and how certain leaderships have drifted away from that mandate

Links: 

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag
• Discover Fletcher Marketing PR
• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR 
• Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest 
• Find out more about the Global Alliance
• Read the Global Alliance Code of Ethics 
• Read Mary Beth’s blog post on her banishment by the GA

In Episode 18 (Episode 4 of Season 2), Mary Beth speaks with Shay Lynn about several essential components of nudge theory and how nudge communications can make strategic communications initiatives even more valuable to organizations.

Shay and Mary Beth also discuss the complexity of PR metrics and how "too much of a good thing" can result in meaningless data overload for both PR teams and clients, without necessary directional insights that prove the real value of managing data in the first place.

Among Shay's insights:

1. How her new journey as an entrepreneur is unfolding, in leading her own public relations consultancy -- already to much industry attention and acclaim
2. What "nudge communications" is, examples of how it's integrated into campaigns, what the benefits are, and how public relations professionals can use nudge as an effective, well-planned technique
3. Why metrics -- while important -- also can be mismanaged in ways that take the focus off the core benefits of campaign outcomes (or even make entire companies go awry, such as in the precedent-setting case example of Wells Fargo in the U.S. banking industry)
4. How ethics factor into both nudge communications as well as use of metrics
5. How a PRCA-UK PR Council initiative Shay is overseeing on ethics is looking to undertake its work in 2020
6. What three things public relations professionals should focus on today to achieve meaningful behavioral change with targeted stakeholders

Links:

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag
• Discover Lynn PR: www.lynnpr.co.uk  
• Connect with Shayoni Lynn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shayonislynn/ 
• Follow Shay Lynn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shayonislynn 
• Follow Lynn PR ltd on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LynnPRLtd 
• Discover Fletcher Marketing PR: https://www.fletchermarketingpr.com/ 
• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR https://twitter.com/fletcherpr 
• Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher https://twitter.com/kdfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest https://twitter.com/MaryBethWest 
• Follow the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA-UK): https://twitter.com/PRCA_UK 

Show Notes:

In Episode 17, Kelly and Mary Beth interview two women whose wit, grit and wisdom on the subjects of career and community success make for one of the most compelling episodes yet of #MsInterPReted.

• Sharon Hannum and Joy Bishop share:
• Their personal stories of entering their respective careers in male-dominated work environments (heavy manufacturing and military, respectively) and in an era when the women’s movement was only just beginning (the 1970s) and racial equality ethics were not widely discussed – much less implemented – in many workforce environments;  
•  How both dealt with overt incidents of discrimination in their careers while forging positive careers forward;
• How the strategies and techniques of getting a career foothold have changed over the years… and what aspects have stayed the same; 
• Why it’s so important that woman-to-woman support systems are positive ones and not of a negative scarcity-mentality that play into common stereotypes;
• What companies often do wrong in the area of community involvement … and what changes they should make to get things right.

 Links:

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag
• Discover Fletcher Marketing PR: https://www.fletchermarketingpr.com/ 
• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR https://twitter.com/fletcherpr 
• Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher https://twitter.com/kdfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest https://twitter.com/MaryBethWest 

In Episode 16, Kelly, Mary Beth and long-time Atlanta radio personality and LGBT trailblazer Melissa Carter explore what brands, marketers and strategic communicators are getting right (and wrong) about reaching the lesbian segment of the market. 

 Melissa shares:

• Her personal coming-out journey, and what teenage and early-adult life was like for her in a Bible-belt, Middle Tennessee small town;
• How coming-out to her family set the pace for her to embark on an authentic life in her mid-20s, and how her father’s reaction as a Christian (and his comment about Jesus) was such a critical moment in her life;
• Her experience as an organ-donation recipient (kidney) and how finding a nephrologist in a gay-friendly Atlanta medical directory saved her life;
• Fairness issues of being “branded” gay / lesbian (given that straight people are not branded “straight”);
• What it means when marketers give lesbians “the scraps from the straight table” and why only lukewarm LGBT brand support never works well;
• What brands like Absolut Vodka, Subaru, Disney, The Hallmark Channel and Chik-fil-A are doing right or wrong in their messaging;
• Differences between supporting the gay community versus a willingness to SEE the gay community;
• How societal messages and conditioning of boys versus girls when they’re growing up feed lifelong behaviors that impact women’s ability to achieve career success;
• What elements of brand-experience and authenticity drive loyalty within the lesbian community;
• What legacies of inclusion versus exclusion mean for brands long-term.

Links:

1. Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag
2. Tune in to Melissa Carter’s “She Persisted” podcast: https://shepersistedshow.com/ 
3. Follow Melissa Carter on Twitter: @MelissaCarter https://twitter.com/MelissaCarter 
4. Discover Fletcher Marketing PR: https://www.fletchermarketingpr.com/ 
5. Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR https://twitter.com/fletcherpr 
6. Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher https://twitter.com/kdfletcher 
7. Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest https://twitter.com/MaryBethWest 

About Bob Dickie

As CEO of Bonvera, Bob Dickie leads a premium health, wellness, and lifestyle company where entrepreneurs are celebrated.  

Prior to the private sector, Bob served more than six years as a captain in the United States Air Force in various assignments that led to extensive duty in Europe and Asia. Post-military, Bob became the CEO for an international retail and training company supplying the direct sales and network marketing industry, which led to deep working relationships with Amway and MonaVie, to name a few. 

Leading a company turn-around, Bob’s team rebuilt the entire organization, with new technology and product lines helping the organization more than triple in size from 2004 to 2009.

As a college athlete, U.S. Air Force Athlete of the Year, and 3rd US finisher in the Boston Marathon (23rd overall), Bob enjoys physical challenges as well as immersing himself in turn-around environments with team-building and scaling operations. He is married and the father of six children.

Show Notes
Kelly welcomes Bob Dickie, who talks about his CEO journey to Bonvera and explains how direct-selling works, as it has evolved to a significant market force in the U.S. and abroad. 

 Bob discusses:

• How the seeds of the direct-selling industry decades ago (with such companies as Avon and Tupperware) have now flourished through the power of word-of-mouth and direct-to-consumer marketing, amid so many people tuning out traditional marketing methods to inform their purchasing choices and drive their product passions;
• How 80% of Bonvera’s sales-team entrepreneurs are women;
• Why women are flocking to the direct-selling self-employment model due to a global economy; pressures for diversified U.S. household incomes; the growth of the gig economy / freelancer economy – particularly for the Millennial Generation; low cost to entry and other factors;
• The “love-it-or-you-hate-it” reputation of direct-selling and what drives misconceptions about the industry;
• The finer points of best-in-class product development and how systems of integrity must be upheld to build and earn positive brand reputation;
• How “fast-moving streams” and trends in society are reflective of the direct-selling evolution;
• How to overcome “fear of salesmanship” and find a product passion, to best consider opportunities in the field.

Links:

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag
• Discover Bonvera: https://bonverahq.com/ 
• Discover Fletcher Marketing PR: https://www.fletchermarketingpr.com/ 
• Follow Bob Dickie on Twitter: @RobertDickie https://twitter.com/RobertDickie 
• Follow Bonvera on Twitter: @Bonvera_US https://twitter.com/bonvera_US 
• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR https://twitter.com/fletcherpr 
• Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher https://twitter.com/kdfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest https://twitter.com/MaryBethWest

Join Kelly and Mary Beth as they take a walk down memory lane of "Ms. InterPReted" / Season 1 and revisit their favorite on-air moments, as well as some of the key take-aways from the first 13 episodes of the podcast . . . including their amazing guests' wit, humor, wisdom, insights and incredible storytelling -- all about the power of strategic communications, human relationships and the fundamentals of good PR. 

As the Fletcher Marketing PR team takes a podcast hiatus for the holidays, don't forget to tune back in to #MsInterPReted on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020 for the launch of Season 2. . . Kelly and Mary Beth will have some interesting tweaks and new offerings to announce for the podcast in the New Year!

Links:

• Follow the #MsInterPReted hashtag in social media
• Discover Fletcher Marketing PR: https://www.fletchermarketingpr.com/ 
• Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR https://twitter.com/fletcherpr 
• Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher https://twitter.com/kdfletcher 
• Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest https://twitter.com/MaryBethWest