Public Relations

I had the opportunity to speak to communications students at Capilano University earlier this week. They are smart, engaged and are going to bring some great, new energy to the PR world. Connecting with students always inspires me, it makes me realize how fortunate I am to work in PR and it reminds me how valuable PR is to an organization.



There are many, many functions of PR. At the foundation, we help our clients to build positive relationships with their “publics.” (You can replace the word publics with the noun that works for you: stakeholders, audience, target market, employees, government, media, community—the list goes on and on.)



One of the questions that came up when I was speaking to the students was around engagement and the best way to approach it. That depends on the community and the organization’s objectives, but it brought home the fact that PR is about engagement and that you don’t engage by just putting up a Facebook page or opening a Twitter account.



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For some reason, we are experiencing an increase in those time-wasting, frustrating, painful calls from telemarketers that try to sell you something that you don’t want and you don’t need. We’re also getting companies that want us to send business their way because “we’re good” and “your clients would be happy using our services.” (Really? Is that why I get up in the morning? To introduce you, someone I don’t know, to the clients we have built strong relationships with over many years???)



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I’ve written about this before and will write about it again… Be careful what you put on social networking sites—professionally and personally. If you wouldn’t want to see it on the front page of your local newspaper, don’t put it up.



The people on my Facebook page represent a range of relationships to me. Some are close friends, other acquaintances, others are former colleagues and some I have only met either briefly in person or not at all. It’s a bit like a neighbourhood coffee shop where there are a lot of different people hanging out.



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My friend, mentor and former boss, Della Smith of Q Workshops, is a smart cookie. She may, in fact, be the smartest person I have ever met. (And I have met a lot of really, really smart people!)



Now, I am not sure I would put Della up against Jeopardy genius Ken Jennings—that’s just a different kind of smart (and one that I believe has more to do with memory than anything else). But I have seen Della in a wide range of scenarios—from dealing with an organization facing a huge crisis to sipping a cold beverage at an outdoor patio on a hot summer day—and along with her strategic, steel trap of a mind… There is something else, something special and rare and well, simple, that is the foundation of her style of genius (and her success). She is a relationship builder.



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