Archive for July, 2009
Posted by Paul Holman of AHA Creative Strategies on July 31st, 2009
Today it’s Ruth’s turn to answer the questions.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m a Toronto-born city girl learning how to live in a small town just outside of Vancouver. I’m happy to be close to Vancouver because I love sushi. A former journalist, I hopped the fence to PR and found the best of both worlds. I get to work with journalists and behind the scenes with clients.
What do you see as your communications strengths?
I am strategic and curious. Learning new tools such as social media is a bonus, not a chore. With a strategic approach, I can identify…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 30th, 2009
There is an excellent piece on Mashable on: How To Deal With Social Networking Overload. It’s worth a read.
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 29th, 2009
I have spent a lot of time in my professional life pitching story angles either as a journalist with an idea for an article, where I had to get my editor’s buy in, or as a PR person putting forward a pitch to media about a client’s organization. Since many of my colleagues and friends are either journalists or communicators, I also spend a fair bit of time discussing what makes a good story, even when it isn’t about a specific pitch.
One of the things that AHA clients rely on us for is to help them with media and blogger…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 27th, 2009
There has been a great deal of coverage on the acquisition of online retailer Zappos.com by Amazon. I had the privilege of hearing Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh speak earlier this year at the Ragan Social Media Conference in Las Vegas.
I have to admit that when I saw Tony’s name on the program as a keynote and realized he was speaking about corporate culture, I wasn’t that excited about it. However, you can’t deny that Zappos.com has a great reputation as does Tony, so I went to see him speak because, well – he was there and so was I.
His keynote changed…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 24th, 2009
Today we’re hearing from Kim our PR Coordinator in Calgary on the crew questions.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I graduated from college with a Legal Secretarial Arts degree in 1994. I worked in law firms following that until my first son was born. Taylor is now six and Tyson is three; they certainly keep me busy! I love to scrapbook and make cards and also love to work in my flower and vegetable gardens.
What do you see as your communications strengths?
I provide strong support for communications outreach and pay attention to the details, especially in written documents. I hate…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 23rd, 2009
I am a big fan of David Henderson and look forward to his blog posts. He wrote a piece recently that stimulated some strong discussion here at AHA and pretty much everywhere I have brought it up. With the headline The Very Broken PR Agency Model, you know right away that David is going to touch some nerves. In his post, he says that the agency business is singularly about billable hours and that the focus of most PR agencies isn’t on the work or the client.
I think he has some valid points and I strongly believe that as an industry,…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 22nd, 2009
Let’s hear from Maryse Cardin, Communications Strategist/Writer, on the get to know you questions.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m motivated, grateful and excited about my life and the opportunities that are forever presenting themselves to me. I’m a lifetime student, always learning, always growing. I love to work with people and help them succeed.
What do you see as your communications strengths?
My ability to get to the heart of the story, to determine angles, and to figure out how to best communicate them. I’m calm under pressure and a terrific trainer.
What made you interested in joining AHA?
It’s the team! The…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 21st, 2009
There is an excellent post on the PR Channel blog about how to effectively use video in public relations. More and more at AHA, we are making use of video as a communications tool for our clients. It is one of the reasons that we wanted to have a video producer as a part of the crew. (And we were lucky to get Scott to join us, he’s exceptional.)
Five years ago creating a video was a huge deal. It took big budgets, a great deal of planning and the video came out looking very corporate and slick. Today, no one wants…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 20th, 2009
Today we’re asking the get to know the AHA Crew questions to Paul Holman, Principal.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I admit, I am a bit of a workaholic (probably because I love my job) who also enjoys spending lots of time with Ruth and our two dogs. I really like spending Saturdays with them. We hit garage sales, go to the beach, and work in our garden.
What do you see as your communications strengths?
I listen and pay attention to the details. From brainstorming a campaign concept to writing and editing to media outreach, everything at AHA is well thought…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 17th, 2009
I have been thinking about the new opportunities that will come with Google Wave. This certainly has created some great discussion here at AHA.
The description from Wikipedia is: Google Wave is “a personal communication and collaboration tool” announced by Google at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009. It is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking. It has a strong collaborative and real-time focus supported by robust spelling/grammar checking, automated translation between 40 languages, and numerous other extensions. It is expected to be released later in 2009.
Google…
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