This morning I read that Texas A&M is leaving the Big 12 for another major sports conference, likely the Southeastern Conference (SEC). I have no connection to the Big 12 but as a fan of college football, I know this is a big deal. It’s a very big deal.  Not only could it result in a domino effect that changes the landscape of the sport, but it’s an incredibly risky move that ends decades of tradition and provides absolutely no guarantees that A&M will be any more competitive in the SEC than they were in the Big 12.

So it’s no surprise that as many fans support A&M’s move, there’s an equal number that wish they wouldn’t make the leap.  I happen to know that in business and in life, despite what can be overwhelming pressure to stay the course and not make waves – change is a good thing. In fact, I believe that it’s often necessary.

We’re currently involved in an agency review for an organization that has worked with their incumbent firm for many years. They solicited PR agencies to take part in the review – and let the representatives from the interested agencies know at that time that it was likely that they would maintain their existing relationship and move forward. (They are obligated to go through the process, which is why this is somewhat tolerable.)

If your agency is consistently delivering smart and strategic programs, I get why you keep them on board. However, in this particular case, we conducted an informal audit of this organization’s communications presence and clearly see that it is stale. There is very little PR activity. In addition, non-traditional tactics and avenues, most notably social media channels, haven’t been effectively leveraged, and in no way has the organization brought a clear message to its audience. It’s a buyer’s market for PR agencies and these characteristics certainly should not define any outsourced PR program.

While we don’t relish the idea of any of our clients making an agency change, we certainly understand the motivation for organizations to explore other options. It’s an opportunity for fresh start or, at the minimum, a chance to build on what has worked in the past and put fresh and experienced resources into a communications initiative. And, while shared, the responsibility of ramp-up should fall on the shoulders of that newly selected partner, regardless of how deeply entrenched a former agency may have been.  Matter has been placed in such a position numerous times, and we now prepare ourselves to meet a lofty set of expectations right from the onset of virtually any relationship.  Those clients took a chance and embraced change.  It’s up to us to ensure that there are never any regrets.

Last week, my adorable seven-year-old son Owen came bursting up out of the playroom, leaving his best friend with a paused game of Wii Mario Kart so that he could use the bathroom. He sprinted to the bathroom, did his business, and came back through kitchen in a blur, then paused at the top of the stairs before heading back down. He looked thoughtfully at me as he adjusted the twisted waistband on his shorts and asked: “Mom, why haven’t they invented pants with a toilet in them?” I laughed and said that he should invent them, but that plumbing was likely to be a big design challenge. He smiled with his big brown eyes and without another word, dashed away, back to playing.

This seemed a moment made for Facebook sharing, so I posted it, where it was met with a few Likes and some cynical (and funny) commentary such as “that’s called a diaper” or “because it would be hard to walk around!”

I posted it because it made me laugh out loud, and I wanted to share that. But the adult responses (including my own) made clear the massive gap in imagination between 7 year olds and grown-ups. And it made me wonder when it is that we lose the limitless optimism that underlies a child’s assumption that any invention is possible.

It reminded me of an article I read a couple months ago in Fast Company that highlighted a study by Latitude research about children predicting the future of computing. Here’s the part that’s thought-provoking. Only 4% of the children’s wishes were unattainable right now (teleportation and time travel) given what engineers are currently capable of. In fact, one of the children wished for the ability to search with an image, rather than text. Incredibly, Google announced Google Image Search the day the study was released.

Leading me to the conclusion that while wild imaginations might lead to crazy nightmares and very strange storytelling among the ten and under set, we adults could use a dose more of it in our everyday lives. Just imagine the things we could accomplish and invent if we suspended our inclination to say “because it would be hard” and instead, thought really creatively about solving problems, and then tried with boundless energy to make something amazing happen.

In our PR jobs, we get bound up by what’s practical: “the client might not want to hear this idea” or “they’ll never do it anyway” or “my manager will think I’m crazy for suggesting a different way” or “this reporter probably won’t take this meeting.” What a waste of energy and time. For my part, I’m using this pants-toilet incident as an object lesson in the benefits of being more childlike, and a little less practical. I expect that in addition to doing better work, I’ll be having a lot more fun.

Oh, and I fully expect that when Owen gets his prototype off the ground, we’ll all be more productive during the day, since we won’t have those pesky bathroom breaks to slow us down.

My favorite blog isn’t a newspaper site. It’s a blog by a lobster dealer who started working on the docks when he was 9 years old. Good Morning Gloucester gives a daily snapshot of life in Gloucester, Mass., the nation’s oldest fishing harbor. It’s hugely popular, with 22,000 to 30,000 page views per day.

The main reason Good Morning Gloucester connects with readers around the world is because it’s so real. The language is how real people talk and the people on the blog come across as real, likable people with interesting stories. There are lessons there for those of us who communicate for a living. Use simple, clear language. Be likable. Tell a good story.

My friend Joey Ciaramitaro is the lobster dealer behind Good Morning Gloucester. We interviewed him for ideas on ways to engage readers, build an audience and create, as he would say, “a blog that doesn’t suck.” Here are his tips.

What do you think? Which tips did we miss?

Though resistant at first, over the past few years I and the rest of the folks at Matter have come to embrace Twitter as an incredibly useful, powerful — and sometimes even fun — vehicle for connecting and communicating. Some of us would even go so far as to say we love Twitter now. Along the way, I’ve learned to keep the following tips in mind, which definitely apply to my fellow PR professionals:

1.) Follow and engage with relevant media. Doing so will keep you on your toes and in the loop. I can’t even count the number of times me or my colleagues have scored an interview opportunity, a competitive advantage, or saved ourselves from an ill-timed phone call simply by paying attention to what the people we pitch are tweeting at any given moment.

2.) Follow your peers. It takes a village to stay on top of the latest news, statistics, resources and “uh oh” moments happening in the wacky world where PR, marketing and social media intersect. Following and engaging with other PR professionals helps all of us pick up on things we should be paying attention to and doing…and helps us avoid the same mistakes others are making, as well.

3.) Keep at it. Sure, we’ve all let ourselves lapse from time to time. But if your last tweet was “Trying to figure out how to use the Twitter” back in January 2009, chances are your clients and colleagues aren’t exactly going to see you as the most credible and knowledgeable expert on social media and communications trends.

4.) Show personality, not poor judgment. Sharing emotions, pop culture tidbits and slice of life observations are a great way to build a following, demonstrate authenticity, and actually enjoy tweeting. But on the web, there is no real “delete” button, since just about everything is captured and cached and seen by someone the second it goes out. So if you’re tweeting in the heat of the moment, step away and take a deep breath before you hit send. If you’re commenting on politics or considering an update that some would consider TMI…all the more reason to truly stop and think before you tweet.

5.) Don’t drink and tweet. It’s never as cute or witty as you thought it was when you sober up. Trust me.

Writing is part of everything we do here at Matter. Pitches, briefing notes, bylined articles, notes from a client call or interview – it all requires us to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboards) to get our thoughts out before they flutter away.

The topic of “writing” in general has been on my mind lately (I know, very deep), as one of my teams perseveres on a pretty extensive writing project. We’re creating content for a magazine published by a client for its extensive customer base. My colleagues and I are doing all the things a reporter would be doing: interviewing sources (in this case end-users); bouncing ideas off each other; writing, editing, scrapping drafts and starting over again; submitting finished pieces to the editor (our client contact); and sometimes watching 1,200-word articles that went through multiple drafts get cut for space. It’s exhausting, but it’s giving me and my team an interesting insight into the process reporters and editors go through every single day. Performing both our PR duties and editorial duties has personnally given me a new appreciation for the work our media targets do every day.

While we’re all respectful of our media contacts’ time and bandwidth, I suppose that I’m guilty of taking for granted what they actually do, day in and day out. When setting up a briefing for a client or sending background materials, I only see that small sliver of work that goes into the completed article. I don’t see all the late nights hunched over the keyboard, cigarette smoke choking the air, a reporter complaining that the editor just won’t get off his back and then yelling “copy!” the moment he rips the paper from the typewriter (every newsroom out there is just like the one in the Superman movie, right?).

Kidding aside, there’s a ton of work that goes into writing and publishing a magazine, and as a PR person that’s never worked in a newsroom, I have a new appreciation for the effort that goes into pushing an undertaking like this across the finish line.

In the great cinematic achievement that was Demolition Man (with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes in a dystopian near-future) every restaurant, no matter how humble or fancy, was a Taco Bell.  The film explained that The Bell had won the “franchise wars” and so became the only restaurant brand in their society.  By the end of the movie, Stallone had defeated the villains and returned freedom to the land, but the point about the power of brands was what stayed with me.

In our less cinematic world, there are plenty of examples of this power.  Don Sutherland, a writer who spent a great deal of his career covering the photography industry, said it best when he told me that Sony could successfully market a blender, the kitchen appliance of choice at that moment. His perspective was proven in the marketplace soon after the introduction of the Sony Mavica, the camera that captured digital still images and stored them directly on a 3.5” floppy disk. (Remember 3.5” floppy disks?) Until that product introduction, Sony had no presence in the digital still camera category and it was dominated by typical photo brands such as Olympus, Nikon and Kodak. However, one Mavica generation later, Sony was the category leader. The Mavica line of cameras was a serious technology breakthrough at the time – so success wasn’t unexpected. However, despite significant drawbacks – a fixed focal lens and no zoom, for example –early adopters selected a Sony product on brand alone.

Among other brands, I liken the success of the Mavica to the introduction of anything branded by Apple. Since the introduction of all things beginning with “i”, the global giant of Cupertino has dominated the market with some of the biggest game-changing devices of our generation. Other brands have succeeded as well, building strength inside a category and often stretching beyond; though not always making such a positive visible impact on the consumer world. While it starts with the introduction of solid products that people enjoy and value, successful brand management plays a crucial role in the process. We are trained to embrace a widget because it comes from such a reputable provider of goods.  Sometimes, that trust or even a “cool factor” is enough to carry a product or service to success.

In the public relations business, we think a great deal about the power of brands and reputations.  In fact, the way a brand communicates about itself is often the secret ingredient in changing a product into an unstoppable market trend. Many of our clients are mid-sized technology companies who have a very real need to synergize the messages they bring to the market, and often our work starts with the launch of a brand that resonates with decision-makers and causes them to take notice or better yet, action! The messaging structure only begins there, but should be a part of all communications initiatives executed by a client.

Speaking of the impact of brands…more than ever it seems to me that many popular categories – particularly those with a slant toward technology – are dominated by only a few. Google. Microsoft. Facebook. For example, the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft is a timely indicator of the extension of established brands. The Skype name will dissolve and its system and service will live on as part of a product family.  In our business, we think a great deal about the power of brands and reputations.  In fact, the way a brand communicates about itself is often the secret ingredient in changing a product into an unstoppable market trend.

If you’re anything like me, then you wait about 360 days until Christmas. Give or take a day or so.

Needless to say, patience is not a virtue I was born with. But, it’s something that I’ve worked to improve and continue to do so; not just in my personal life, but also in my professional life.

In the world of PR, things are constantly changing and moving. Having a little bit of patience can change the look of the landscape. For example, you could pitch a reporter a fantastic story idea but have to wait literally months for the article to publish. Or, there is the possibility that you pitch a reporter and never hear back from them.

There is the possibility that the reporter isn’t interested, yet you will never find out without truly following up and finding out. Having patience and persistence, your PR efforts could fizzle before they even had a chance to sizzle.

In the longterm, having patience in PR, the process, and the results will go a long way. How do you practice patience in PR?

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein

I am a runner. To grossly oversimplify: I run because it makes me happy. There are a lot of other reasons too, that are pretty well summed up in this post from a fairly new runner with great perspective.

For me, running is a joy, a break from real life, a way to achieve. I set goals, and pat myself on the back when I accomplish them: “I ran 35 miles this week” or “I ran four miles in 30 minutes!” Besides me, nobody is paying attention, and the rewards for my big races are Finisher’s Medals and cotton, race-logo-emblazoned t-shirts I’ll never wear.  My kids, since learning to talk have asked me “Are you gonna win, Momma?” followed by: “But… then why are you running?”

My aching body echoed those questions recently as I slogged through the Boston Run to Remember Half Marathon. It was wretchedly humid, and around Mile 10, there were a lot of fellow racers who stopped running.

I thought to myself in that Mile 10 moment (actually, I had to yell to my own brain to get a thought heard over the Foo Fighters screaming in my ear asking “is someone getting the best of you”… you really can’t make up this kind of irony): why should I keep going? My legs hurt. I have a dehydration headache, but I’m so sweaty my sunscreen is sliding into my eyes and blinding me. A lot of other people are stopping.

You can see why I love running long distance races. Who wouldn’t pay to feel that way? But wait, there is a point coming.

For me, that Mile 10 moment is an object lesson in how to deal with those times in life and work when what you’re doing seems very nearly impossible. Public relations is rife with Mile 10 moments: the blogger event has more action items than your team can possibly handle; you can’t get a prospect to come on board as a client no matter how perfect your agency is for them; a reporter just doesn’t think the story you’re telling matters; your client’s Facebook page has become a full-on weekend job for a hard-working team of bright, capable people who really should be able to have a life and you don’t know how to make it better without jeopardizing the program. Those moments happen, and when they do, unless you are made of iron, you probably think about finding an easy way out, about finding a way to stop. Just like in a distance
race.

In races when I’ve hit my low point, the way I hit reset is to imagine the regret I’d feel the next day if I quit. Twenty-five more minutes of running will NOT feel worse than the nagging, unrelenting regret I’ll have about quitting, and so I find the strength to keep going. The reward may only be a fake medal, but inside, I feel like anything is possible after doing what I thought I might not be able to do.

In PR, persevering through Mile 10 moments can lead to similar feelings of victory, and also to breakthroughs in the way we work. When we hit the wall and find a way to keep moving forward creatively, we become better at asking, at telling our clients’ stories, at managing events, at finding effective social media management strategies. Perseverance pays off in that moment, for our clients, and for us as PR professionals, it pays returns throughout our careers.

There’s not much that’s more frustrating than feeling like you’re not being heard, unless it’s feeling like you’re not being understood.
And when the person who isn’t hearing and understanding you is also writing about your company in places where tens of thousands of people (customers, stockholders, analysts, employees) are reading about you, frustration is layered with fear that your story is being misunderstood by the market. Here’s a comment I have gotten from almost every new client I’ve worked with over the course of my PR career.

“Lois Lane, with the Daily Planet, really has it in for us. She never includes us in stories about our industry, and when she
does, she makes us sound like we don’t know what we’re talking about.”

Here’s my advice. And though it is exquisitely simple, it can be anything but easy. But it’s a common-sense approach to a familiar challenge
that I’ve used with many different clients over the years, and it hasn’t failed yet.

1.  Hit the reset button on your emotions. Frustration and fear are two feelings that have no place in the effort to re-engage and build a relationship with Lois Lane. Remember that the goal is for Lois to understand your story, not to prove you’ve been wronged or to win a debate with her.

2.  Be dispassionate, and reassess the situation. Sit with someone who doesn’t work with your company (or who is new to it), someone who will give you an honest opinion on whether the articles you’ve interpreted as negative, are in fact negative.  Be open to the possibility that you are too close to the situation to be assessing it accurately.

3.  Re-engage meaningfully. Remember, a problem in communications very rarely falls on only one party’s shoulders. This process is designed to help re-open communications in a productive way.

If the assessment reveals that Lois’ coverage is not truly negative, but perhaps is missing some key elements of your company’s story, then you need to recalibrate your storytelling. Your goal is to re-engage on an education mission – sharing your story in ways that will matter to the Daily Planet’s readers. Do they like to hear customers’ perspectives? Do they want financial analysts who can speak to your business? Give Lois all the tools she needs to give her readers the best story possible.

If Lois’ articles really are negative, you need to assess all the reasons why. Does she rely on an analyst’s opinion of you, and that analyst dings you regularly? Is she mistakenly comparing you to a company that isn’t actually a competitor? The answers to these kinds of questions
will help you craft a plan for engaging in a direct, but not hostile, conversation about how you can work better with Lois to ensure that her readers are getting the whole story. Remember that this isn’t personal. It’s all about ensuring that Lois’ readership understands your company.

 
4.  Consider Lois a valuable contact, not a potential mouthpiece for you. Read what Lois writes, even when it isn’t about you. If your customers read her articles, you should too. And if you have a statistic or a friend who can help her with a story she’s writing that isn’t about you, you’re building trust with Lois by providing it to her. If it’s something you’d do for a business colleague, you should do it for your friends in the media too.

 
5.  Remember that Lois is a person. This isn’t personal, but it is human, and understanding Lois’ pressures can help you to communicate better with her.  Here’s Lois’ life: She has conversations with hundreds of people every week. She has probably been assigned at least two new industries to cover in the last year. She has multiple deadlines and office politics just like everyone else. She is predisposed to be cynical, because that’s what a reporter is supposed to be. She doesn’t want to look like she’s being snowed by a company line. You need to work to give her something more than a corporate positioning statement – give her time with your customers, let her understand your story in a way
that is credible to her, and to her editor.

A few weeks ago, I stood in the hallway outside room 4A during career day at my children’s school. Standing there, breathing in that elementary school air that makes you feel like you’re ten years old again, I watched Carl’s dad passing around bubbling test tubes of something – wearing a white lab coat and goggles, and explaining a scientific theory that had enchanted the children.

Standing there waiting, my phone was dinging with emails (review asap!), ringing with meeting invitations (all day tomorrow!), and my mind was slightly distracted by the ever-present to-do list for clients and for Matter ticking through the back of my mind – things I’d need to do later tonight, because I left early for career day.

Suddenly, instead of being jazzed up about what a great career PR is (Telling a great story! Facebook/Twitter/Social Media! Working with smart people all day!), I was thinking about how much less cool it seemed than the demonstration of liquid alchemy currently underway in 4A. Fast-paced, stressful, demanding, with deadlines and crises that are oblivious to normal working hours, travel, all the demands of a client-service business, PR doesn’t always compare well to the easy-to-sell world of science (curing disease!), or medicine (saving lives!), or teaching (molding minds!).

Every time I have an informational interview, or am invited to talk with a group about a career in PR, I start by saying (because this matters to all of us who care about job security) it’s a career that remains in high demand. More importantly, though, I always say that there has not been one day in my career that I haven’t learned something new. The older I get, the more I realize how crucial that is to long-term job – and life – satisfaction. Not only do I love the daily challenge of learning, but I am happy to say that I’m a more interesting person because of my career – the people I’ve met, the products I’ve learned about, the programs I’ve led, the challenges and trials, the good and the bad – and I wouldn’t trade that for a lifetime of bubbling test tubes.

Uncovering and telling the story of a company in a way that captivates an audience, influences behaviors, and ultimately drives business value for the company’s stakeholders is a high that is both inexplicable and elementary. Who among us can’t relate to that great feeling of telling a new story to someone who gets something out of it?

So, with renewed enthusiasm I stepped over the boxes and beakers while Carl’s dad cleaned up his messy little experiment, and I started my talk to the eager faces of 25 ten year olds, by asking them: “How many of you like to learn something before most people know about it, and find fun ways to tell your friends about it?” All 25 hands went up. “Well, then,” said I, “You could have a future in public relations.”