If one tuned into PBS the week after the third season of Downton Abbey concluded in March, one would have bumbled onto a delightful show called Mr. Selfridge featuring the always energetic Jeremy Piven. The show, about a real person who opened the first major department store in London...
GAZA. This is a name that has become ubiquitous with terse global relations, terrorism, hating on Israel and all-around ne'er-do-wells. However, thanks to this kooky story from the Christian Science Monitor (ironic, right?), we discover the people of Gaza are just as normal as the rest of us. Why? Because even these guys get a hankering for some finger-licking goodness.
Thanks to a pioneering Palestinian company al-Yamama (Arabic for 'pigeon'...as in 'delivery'...get it?), and for an American marked-WAY-up price of $30, Gaza residents are now able to have Colonel Harlan Sanders' secret recipe smuggled delivery-style...
Not every social media knock is a crisis, and it's important to be mindful of the difference. Crisis communication guru Melissa Agnes makes this helpful distinction in a post passed along by the Media Skills Academy. Despite a formatting lapse (the Agnes post apparently begins with the second paragraph) the counsel is important to not being stampeded by an edgy appearance in social media.
Here, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, is an example of how important portable technology has become to timely crisis response and management. In bygone days, Dan Schoonmaker, director of communications for the West Michigan Environmental Action Council, would have had to get back to his office computer before sending out alerts for flood-response volunteers...
46 days. Excluding today, it’s about 1,100 hours.
That’s how long we’ve got left with Google Reader as an option, because as discussed previously here on Flack Me, the service is shutting down on July 1.
We don't know whether the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has a public relations branch, but it's already clear in the developing "nonprofits scrutiny" storm that it could have used effective counsel in public and media affairs...
Troubling, indeed, is Deanne Hollis-DeGrandpre's appraisal of the prospects for small public relations offices, those that aren't, say, FleishmanHillard or Edelman, in these increasingly digital times. Blissful ignorance, or avoidance, of the differences between public relations and marketing is sending unwitting businesses into...
Quick Quiz, Flacks: $$$ + An Appearance in the Media, Anywhere = Advertising. Right? Well, according to the recent rash of TV casting scams caused by a ridiculous "PR agency," it seems we need to redefine the whole "paid vs. earned media" conversation. Here's why:
According to a story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and its ace investigative snoop Gitte Laasby, we have a hilarious excuse for a PR agency raising enough red flags to be mistaken for communist China.
