The Body Worlds exhibit has been on display in many cities for quite some time now. I finally had the opportunity to visit this exhibit at the Maryland Science Center over the weekend.
The Body Worlds exhibit is an educational display featuring actual organs and bodies from persons that donated their bodies for this cause. The specimens on view are examples of the technique called Plastination. Invented by a scientist and anatomist Dr. Gunther von Hagens in 1977, Plastination is the method of halting decomposition and preserving anatomical specimens for scientific and medical education.
The exhibit made me realize what an amazing creation our body. I also left the exhibit feeling the desire to respect my body and care for it better.
If you have the chance, I highly recommend this exhibit. It’s not gory and the bodies are treated with care and respect. The Massachusetts exhibit is now closed, but you can check out other cities at http://www.ticketmaster.com/bodies.
Each year we help many clients cut through the clutter and noise at tradeshows to garner attention from prospects, the media, and others. This month both the PR and Creative departments supported Soapstone Networks at NXTcomm08. The creative team designed Soapstone’s booth and the PR team worked to raise Soapstone’s visibility with key editors and industry analysts.
In addtion to productive meetings, relationship building, and written coverage, the show resulted in video coverage of Soapstone Networks on Telephony TV. Check out the video yourself to watch Rich Karpinski and Esmeralda Swartz discuss industry trends.
According to comScore, a provider of Internet audience measurement services, in March 2008 11.4 billion video streams were initiated by 138.5 million users (or 74% of all Internet users that month). People are watching video. While many focus their video searches on YouTube and basset hounds, others spend time searching for and watching live product demonstrations and executive interviews. What are you doing to meet this unprecedented demand for video?
I attended my first Twebinar yesterday. “A what?” A Twebinar. Twebinar = webinar + Twitter.
Imagine a Webinar during which attendees can have conversations about the Webinar using Twitter. Referred to as a microblogging tool by the social media crowd, I describe Twitter as a public instant messaging platform. Check out this in Plain English video on YouTube for a great demonstation.
Back to the Twebinar. I consider a typical Webinar to be a live event with a slide deck. Yesterday’s event was mostly pre-recorded video with a few minutes of live video and no slide deck. The slide deck wasn’t missed, but the live video portions played such a small role today that I wondered why it was a scheduled event rather than just a video clip posted on YouTube. Enter Twitter.
Making it a Twebinar was brilliant, as the community of 500 viewers simultaneously watched the video and tweeted about it online. Yes, much of the tweeting focused on technical difficulties experienced by some attendees, but there were also many posts and comments about the Twebinar’s content: interesting examples of companies successfully using social media to spark conversations. Today’s Twebinar certainly got me talking - and thinking that perhaps the new age of Webinars will be Vebinars and Tvebinars.
If you check out Twitter, be sure to find and follow me. I am @perrinmcc.
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Two Merit Awards
Stiff competition for Bells
Proud to be HB
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The Bell Ringer Awards was a fabulous night shared among HBers. We dined on fancy eats and laughed together. Alas, the awards were not to ring as we’d hoped. With five nominations, we took home two Merits and we are proud of our accomplishment. We learned a great deal about what the best entries for this award would be and how to position them for glory.
On an exceedingly bright note, Dawn Sullivan, one of our newest team members “won” four Bells and one Merit (including “Campaign” category bells that represent the bigger picture and impact of PR) for work she did while at Schwartz Communications. We met a great number of smart and talented pros and we’re better for having entered. My confidence grows daily in the amazing team we have and the stellar experience we consistently deliver for our clients. We look forward to greater success in 2009.
Our very own Boston Celtics celebrated the franchise’s 17th NBA Championship last week and we couldn’t be more proud. After acquiring all-stars Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in the offseason, the new-look Celtics earned the league’s best regular-season record before advancing through the playoffs to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers in six games.
Throughout the season, the Celtics stressed the importance of team – a concept we also use at Hart•Boillot. We like to think of ourselves as one unit rather than individual employees. Much like the Celtics, we all offer something different for the company. But in the end, its our collective effort that makes us who we are.
We may not receive trophies for our work, but our awards come in the form of consistent client satisfaction – even the NBA Champion Boston Celtics can appreciate that.
I recently returned from a vacation at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The many highlights included roller coasters, fireworks, and a new a car stunt show. I managed to capture some video of the show’s final stunt – enjoy!
CBS News’ Andrew Cohen’s maligning of the PR industry on June 1, 2008, in response to Scott McLellan’s new book, generated an extraordinarily defensive response from many in our industry. This included an indignant (and appropriately well-written) public missive from PRSA among many other responses.
For a profession that lives or dies on public perceptions you folks in public relations have as much work to do as the legal profession and the journalism profession (and the political profession) in changing the negative attitudes of your now-cynical audiences.
If I take issue with one thing, it’s Cohen’s use of the word “now.” If you are in the business of communicating, and you trust your audiences to be discriminating and educated, then you must also assume that they are cynical. Cohen is right — we have as much work to do as the legal profession and the journalism profession… not just now, but always. We should be doing that work every day as part of our practices, particularly given that journalists are the first people whose trust we need to earn. While nobody likes to be thrown in with a group that is receiving a tongue-lashing, why not let some of Cohen’s diatribe roll off our shoulders and appreciate the rest of it as a valuable reminder of our ethical responsibilities.
I am very excited to be writing my first blog post for Hart-Boillot. I hope you enjoy reading it!
As I made the transition from Schwartz Communications, a perennial high-tech PR powerhouse, to Hart-Boillot, a little PR engine that can and does, I was struck by how similar the two companies are in one very important way — they both service clients who wear 100 different hats, need a GPS to remember what city they are in, burn the proverbial candle at both ends and churn out technology that is re-shaping their respective industries.
I have great respect for these high-octane companies and love being part of the ride. Sometimes, as we buckle in and race from action item to action item, I am reminded of something we all learned in elementary school during fire safety week: Stop, Drop and Roll.
Stop- seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Do it anyway. Take a few minutes to come up for air. In the world of business and PR, things change at lightning speed and marching to a PR plan drafted six months ago might not make sense anymore. Take this opportunity to stop and fine-tune.
Drop- take it down a level and ask some very basic questions:
What are we trying to accomplish as a business?
What message are we conveying to the market?
Is it working?
Are we reaching the right people?
How has the competitive landscape changed?
Where are the opportunities to differentiate?
What market trends can we use to our advantage?
For many companies, this kind of “strategic check-up” takes place once or twice a year at most. However, I’d like to challenge you to make it a quarterly, if not monthly, reflection. You might say, “Easier said than done!” but keep in mind that you don’t have to go it alone and you don’t need to make it more complicated than it needs to be. All that is required is some good old fashioned deep thought. Bring your most trusted communications staff and consultants into the mix and leverage their insights and ideas as well. That’s why they are there.
Roll- now put all of your reflections and great ideas into action. You’ve taken a fresh look at the situation, generated ideas and met with the people who can help you develop and execute specific and measurable initiatives that match your business strategy. Trust me, this “non urgent” work will make all the difference in the “important/urgent” work you do every day. Like a trip to the gym or a brisk walk, you will feel excited and invigorated and never regret the exercise.
Good luck and let me know how it goes! I look forward to stop, drop and rolling with you sometime soon. Feel free to write to me at dsullivan@hartboillot.com.
Rarely can a concert be described as well-designed, but my recent experience at a Kanye West show was just that.
The hip-hop artist, who has been quoted as saying “I’m a designer and rap is just one of my designs,” has developed a cohesive concert experience. The show’s premise followed Kanye across outer space as his spaceship became lost on an uninhibited planet. His musical and artistic performance never strayed away from the night’s theme.
Consistent branding is important across many mediums – from events to corporations to products. Kanye West feels concerts are just as important.
When I found out that Stefan Sagmeister would be giving a lecture at the ICA in Boston I purchased a ticket right away. I have been a fan of his design work for years and knew that I would not be disappointed. Last month I attended the sold-out lecture and to my delight, I was more than amused.
Sagmeister, an Austrian-born designer, has a slightly different way of looking at things. He is well known for the album covers he created for the likes of Lou Reed, Talking Heads and the Rolling Stones. I respect Sagmeister as a designer and see him as an inspiration to other designers because his innovative work shows that a graphic designer can strike the emotional core.
