Forward Podcast 39 is a conversation with Bruce Brodoff, recently named Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Alliance for Downtown New York. Bruce Brodoff is a multiple-award winning communications professional who has extensive experience in communications, public affairs, marketing and advertising, and television news writing and production.

Bruce, formerly the Director of Public Affairs for the Alliance, started his career in Los Angeles seeking fame and fortune, but his interests and skills eventually led him to the communication field through many trials by fire. He worked for the Giuliani administration in New York City as the Director of Public Relations for the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management. He transferred to the Economic Development Corporation’s marketing and advertising division, where he created advertising and marketing plans and materials that helped attract and retain companies in New York City as well as promoted City property, markets, and business assistance programs and services. Bruce was Director of Communications for the American Red Cross September 11 Recovery Program and subsequently worked as a Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s FEMA Region II office during the Hurricane Katrina crisis.

Bruce keeps an excellent online portfolio (hint, this is a great idea folks) of his current projects, past experiences, job history, successes and contact information. You should spend some time reading more about him, his case studies and learning from this brilliant man and this site.

Show Notes

00:13: Intro by Luke Armour

01:00: Welcoming Bruce Brodoff

01:14: Who is Bruce?

03:12: The Alliance for Downtown New York

05:00: News Junkie heads to Hollywood

07:40: Trial by fire: Office of Emergency Management in New York

08:17: Writing skills are important?!

09:28: 2 years later – economic development corporation

10:42: Coming to communications from other disciplines

13:24: Networking

16:07: Personal Branding - Get an online porfolio

17:24: A News Junkie in 2008

21:00: Ideas from the unlikeliest of places

24:27: Setting yourself apart

26:08: Success Tips!

30:35: Crisis communication, “it’s cool”

35:33: Front seat to the greatest show on earth

37:37: Wrap up
Bruce has agreed to answer questions left in the comments here or you may feel free to contact him directly through his site. Thanks for listening to Forward Podcast 39.

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Tuesday, Nov. 20
1:30pm ET
Listen here

For those of you who don’t know, our very own Luke Armour likes to spread his podcasting talents around … and he has his own weekly podcast at BlogTalkRadio. “The Rundown,” as it’s called, airs live every Tuesday afternoon and features Luke — entertaining as ever — and a guest or two discussing topics relevant to PR, marketing, the Web, etc.

Well, tomorrow, I will be Luke’s guest as we chat about Forward, PR, things I’ve learned during my first few years as a professional, and whatever else Luke chooses to ask me about. So if you’d like to listen in (and surely hear some audible LOLs from me, as I tend to laugh a lot when speaking to Luke), join us at 1:30pm ET tomorrow.

updated 11/26 with audio

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, pr podcast, the rundown, blogtalkradio, luke armour, erin caldwell

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Earlier this year, the Council of Public Relations firms published a white paper on the evolving role of public relations in the age of social media. It’s an interesting and often frank report on the state of public relations. The report’s authors describe the “current communication landscape” as the “wild west, as the advertising agencies and other marketing providers deliver services that, in the past, have been the domain of the public relations industry,”

After reading through the report, I spoke with Matt Shaw, Vice President of the Council of Public Relations Firms, to get his take on the white paper and to ask a few questions about the changing landscape of public relations.

Here’s a snapshot of our recent conversation:

John: The report predicts that “[h]ybrid compensation models are likely to develop that are more closely tied to audience engagement than hourly revenue. This new model would be based partly on an hourly basis, on project deliverables, and measurable outcomes. Clients often are measured and compensated this way in their own businesses, so metrics will become increasingly important and sophisticated within public relations.”

If this is the case, it seems that tools like Google Analytics and Technorati’s authority rankings will become increasingly vital to PR professionals. If this prediction holds true, then will these tracking tools surpass the more traditional PR Trak in terms of how we justify ROI and ultimately develop business?

Matt: It’s difficult to predict how and when PR firm business models may change, but I would agree with the author’s findings that clients are looking at new ways to work w/their firms in this area (PR and ad agency alike). I’m sure there are many PR firms that are talking with their clients today about how to best measure newer social media programs. Measuring the many new forms of “engagement” should only grow in importance, and the good news is that these things are indeed measurable.

Another thing to keep in mind: An under-appreciated element in the overall measurement conversation is the fact that when PR has been measured, in mix marketing models or communications optimization models for example, it performs quite well, and generally comes out on top of other marketing disciplines. The P&G study of ’05 is the best-known case, but it is happening consistently, in all types of industries.

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Bill Sledzik, Associate Professor at Kent State University, joins us for Forward Podcast 32 to give a snapshot of PR academia. Bill is a blogger, PR professor and former PR professional (can you really be a former PR professional?).

In this segment, Bill answers the tough questions that are on students’ minds. What are professionals looking for in a new hire? What questions are you getting from other students? Does blogging matter? How? What about Facebook? Where will I find a job? Is this thing on?

As mentioned in the interview, Bill posted a two-part summary of a study with Kent State and Burrelles Luce. As promised, Bill has threatened to send the full academic tome to anyone who requests it at wsledzik [at] kent.edu

• Study post Part I
• Study post Part II

During the Intro, Paull plugged the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication “Connect” Public Relations & Social Media Conference. Well, look at that, Paull’s speaking at that conference! He’s right there on the Agenda talking about the Forward Blog. The conference has an all-star cast of some of Luke’s favorite PR bloggers. Paull, Kevin Dugan (twice the pr blogger), Constantine, Josh Hallett, and Katie Delahaye Paine just to namedrop a few…and Karen, mustn’t forget Karen. Seriously, if all of those blogs aren’t in your feedreader, get to it.

Paull then bravely mentioned that we’d have links in the show notes, which is easy to say because he’s not doing the show notes this week. So there they are.

Please let Bill, Luke or Paull know what you really think of them. You can email luke [at] forward-moving.com with all your sincerest and most personal thoughts about this or any Forward podcast or leave a comment right here on this blog.

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, forward podcast, pr students, pr education, career advice

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Forward Podcast 30 tackles the topic of interviewing with special guest Nettie Hartsock. Nettie wears many hats. She is a book publicist, a freelance journalist, a PR professional and a blogger. She authors the Professional PR and Must Read Business Books for Allbusiness.com as well as her own blog. To fully appreciate what you hear in Forward 30, read about her extensive and incredibly impressive career.

Nettie and Luke talk about both sides of interviewing: being the interviewee (think: job interview) as well as the interviewer (think: what does my client actually do and how do I tell other people). Nettie shares her experiences and advice on everything. As PR professionals, I think it’s important to remember there are more chances you’ll be interviewing someone else rather than being interviewed. It’s more than setting yourself apart in that first job interview, but also dragging information out of that CEO or engineer who hired you to communicate what they do to people who don’t understand what they do. Whether it’s a white paper, brochure, press release, media advisory, speech or doctor’s excuse (alright, I made that one up) you need to know how to get that information.

As always, leave your comments or questions here for Nettie, Paull or Luke. As an added bonus, Paull will now be making rash, inflammatory statements at the beginning of each Forward Podcast. Tune in twice a month to hear the irrational ramblings of an Aussie in NYC (and the dulcet tones of a guy in rural Ohio).

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Episode 26 of the Forward Podcast is an interview with Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image and host of the superb Six Pixels of Separation podcast, about the importance of personal branding.

Mitch is one of the best people on the planet to talk to about personal branding. He is a highly sought after speaker and is currently writing a book on this very topic.

After listening to this interview you will understand what your personal brand is, the process you can use to start shaping and extending your brand and have some concrete steps spelled out for you to get started with YOU inc.

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I took a group of students to London in May 2005, for a two-week tour of communication agencies, firms, and government officials. It was fantastic. I wrote this article for our Alumni newsletter, but it never made the cut. As so many of our readers are recent graduates, I thought I’d edit and share what I learned. I still feel, two years later, that it’s apropos. - Luke

“Look Right.” Two simple life-saving words are painted on nearly every crosswalk throughout London. As Americans cross the street, our first instinct is to look left first – since that’s the side from which our traffic comes first. In England they drive on the left side of the road.

So what?

So it means if you want to make it across the street without incident, you need to look right first.

I spent two weeks in England, leading a group of students on a PR tour of businesses across London. Our mission was to meet with journalists, CEOs, and professionals covering all aspects of the art and practice of relating to people.

“Look Right.” It seems like that could be a PR practitioner’s motto, too. PR strategically monitors and alters the environment for the benefit of the organization. But in order to effectively enact our strategies, we have to be able to see properly…or look right.

How do we find out what’s going on? How does one environmental alteration affect one’s company? How do we get people to listen? The people we met with had answers. The following is a compilation of intellectual gems I gathered from these professionals.

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Forward Podcast 23 is an interview with Donald Alexander, Senior Lecturer, Public Relations, at Charles Sturt University Bathurst.

Donald shares his tips from years of experience as a PR educator on how to get the most from your PR degree. Prior to entering academia, Donald held senior public relations management positions in both the finance and manufacturing sectors. He has also managed consultancies in technology and general sectors.

Please leave any questions or comments below.

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As a spin off to Leo Bottary’s great post about “Basic Assumptions and The News Media,” I’d like to pose the question “How do you avoid being misquoted?”

Like many PR folk, I’ve had clients who were afraid of media interviews - clients who absolutely despised the idea of talking “on record” with reporters. In my experience, it usually stemmed from a horrible misquote experience years back.

My solution was to revisit that exact bad experience with them, and explain how I would have managed the interview process differently - via key messages, talking slower when giving complex answers, reiterating numbers and messages s/he didn’t want misquoted, following up with clarification via email, etc.

Once the client realized just how much s/he (or their PR person) didn’t do to manage the interview the last time, s/he was willing to try it again with the added tactics for preventing misquotes.

So, what counsel do you give clients to prevent misquotes during the interview and, as the PR advisor, what steps can you take before and after the interview to assure the most accurate quote?

Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, media relations, media interviews

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For Forward Podcast 10 Kevin Dugan guides us through the lifecycle of a media relations pitch.

Kevin is the Director of Marketing Communications for FRCH Design Worldwide and the author of Strategic Public Relations. He is also one half of the team behind the Bad Pitch Blog.

Kevin guides us through the stages of a pitch: preparation, making the pitch, follow up, setting up the interview, and the interview itself.

Pitching is an integral part of media relations and is often carried out by new PR practitioners. If you’re new to pitching, or you’ve never pitched before, this podcast will teach you best practice.

This interview is based on Kevin’s lifecycle of a media relations pitch, and you can download a useful Powerpoint file here. Kevin also suggests that the Bad Pitch Blog’s Ten Reporter Hacks post is useful reading for new practitioners.

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