“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.”

US News just announced “The 50 Best Careers of 2011.” Guess who made the list?

Yup, it’s true. PR pros are right up there with urban planners, meteorologists, athletic trainers, veterinarians, financial advisors, gaming managers and curators. In fact, US News writer Meg Handley’s PR specialist-specific report said the “employment of public-relations specialists is expected to increase by more than 66,000 jobs, or 24 percent, between 2008 and 2018, according to the Labor Department.”

This report comes at an interesting time, as I was just chatting with one of our junior team members who has been with Matter for about three months, and we were discussing how challenging this industry can be. This is her first “real” gig out of college, and she’s been immersed in some serious on-the-job training since day one. Not only has she had to learn the intricacies of our firm – and some extremely technical clients that we represent – but she’s also trying to grasp the PR industry and all the social media that now comes with it. She’s doing an excellent job – and I was commending her for her perseverance.

I started to see the PR industry through her eyes – and I found myself doling out any advice I could think of. Today, my biggest piece of advice to this particular PR newcomer was “Ask questions.” “Ask why we’re doing this, what purpose it serves, how you can do it more efficiently and if you are on the right track.”

As part of Handley’s report on PR pros, Gary McCormick, 2010 chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America, offered his advice: “… It comes down to networking … It’s really the cornerstone for what we do for clients and companies all the time.”

What’s your advice to all the new PR pros who will be coming on the scene in the next eight years?

I’ve had my share of mentors over the years and although each were unique in their own way, they all fell into one of three categories: Casual, Formal and Indirect.

Casual mentors are direct. They shoot from the hip, act as a friend and confidant and show interest in you as a person.

Formal mentors are direct in a different way. You have guided conversations with them, respect their acumen and internalize their advice.

Indirect mentors are those who you study from afar. You observe and respect the way they act, how they conduct themselves and the way they treat others.

PR is a soft science. Sure, the numbers are hard, but the data often leads to different interpretations and you can’t learn how to build a relationship from a textbook.  That is why in this industry, experience is worth its weight in gold. As a PR practitioner, I find myself lucky to be surrounded by the three types of individuals described above on a daily basis.  In their own way, each of them aids my personal and professional development by not only sharing their years of experience, but by offering me genuine, personal advice.

So, who are your mentors? Chances are they don’t even know the weight they carry. You don’t have to tell them – just be thankful for them.

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway 

When I was 19, home for summer break from college, my dad gave me a copy of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you haven’t read it or can’t guess from the title what it’s about, the book outlines seven habits that help a person lead an effective life.  One part I tend to re-read is Habit 5, which is the art of listening to understand. I read it often because like many people, listening completely is not one of my innate strengths.  I am frequently guilty of listening only for what I want to hear, or listening only for an opportunity to make my next point, rather than listening to understand what’s being communicated.

To illustrate, let me share a story. Last week, in the chaos of rushing the kids out the door to school (late), my daughter Grace asked if it was okay for her to put her giant backpack into the back of our SUV. “Sure, toss it back there and hop in, kiddo. We’re late!” She opened the back, deposited the bag, and dutifully hopped into her seat in the car. “All set Mom,” she said, as she fastened her seat belt.  I heard exactly what I wanted to: we were clear for takeoff.

 I backed out of the garage, mentally ticking through my to-do list while answering a question about three-year-old Will’s new teacher – activities that were abruptly ended by a loud, ripping crack as the open tailgate of the car crashed into the garage door. When Grace said “All set, Mom” what she meant was, she was ready to go. She’s nine. She’s not tall enough to shut the back door. If I had been really listening to her in that moment, I would have avoided the hours, money and headache expended to repair the car. (And yes: I am aware that checking the rear-view mirror before backing out might also have averted the incident, but that doesn’t help me make the point I’m going for here.)

In public relations, as in life, good listening is essential to effectiveness, and to avoiding headaches. The practice of thoughtful, results-oriented PR requires careful and empathetic listening – to clients, to reporters, to analysts, to customers, to competitors. Taking time to understand the audience you’re engaging is crucial to connecting, and connecting is the key to sharing information and gaining credibility.

I’m not unique in suggesting that listening is crucial to PR, there have been and – I hope – will continue to be many articles written about the importance of listening in our field. Further, the advent and adoption of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook forces companies and PR professionals listen to their stakeholders in a whole new way – as Eric Qualman, author of Socialnomics says, “…it’s about listening first, selling second.”

Truly listening as part of the way we communicate is the best way to achieve the results our clients expect, whether we’re creating a spot-on positioning platform for a technology company, or generating excitement about a new brand of body wash, or finding just the right story angle to help illustrate a key value of a client.

After the garage door incident, I re-read the key points of Habit 5 and resolved to listen better, in each moment, whether at work or at home. Oh, and I’ll also be sure to check the rearview mirror before backing out of the garage.

Here at Matter we’ve been hiring. We’ve been fortunate to bring in some cool new accounts and grow some existing accounts. The hiring process and interviews have gotten me thinking about traits that impress me in PR candidates. Here’s what I look for:

1 – Be talkative: Can you tell a story? Doesn’t matter what it’s about. If you can tell a good story about your apartment search or fantasy football league, you can tell a good story about our clients that’ll lead to coverage.

2 – But not too talkative: Know when to zip it. Make your point and stop yakking. (Also an important trait once you’ve been hired. In internal meetings. On client calls. In phone pitches.)

3 – Listen: I’m amazed how often candidates don’t listen. Maybe they’re nervously preparing their next answer. Or thinking about the answer they just gave. Doesn’t matter. If you can’t hold an engaging two-way conversation during a job interview, how well will you listen in a meeting with the client?

4 – Do your homework: I know, I know. This is Interview 101. But if a candidate knows the industry award that Matter just won, it tells me they’ll do their homework before sending that pitch to the New York Times. I don’t think a candidate who researched which accounts I work on and where I used to work will spam reporters once we hire them. I just don’t.

5 – Be assertive. Stand up for yourself. If you’re a strong advocate for yourself, you’ll be a strong advocate for our clients. Believe in your skills.

6 – No fragile flowers: If you’re flustered and timid in the job interview, what are you going to do after a reporter hangs up on you?

7 – Think on your feet: An employer once asked me what ducks and refrigerators have in common. I think that type of question is contrived and silly. But if you can tell me how to respond to the reporter who declined to cover our apparel client’s event because of a NASCAR race the same weekend, I’m listening.

8 – Reporter rapport: Be interested in reporters and what they do. Think about their jobs. Care about the news business. Treat them as people, not tools. OK, as a former reporter, this is personal. But I’ve got little use for PR people who view reporters as foes. If you do, it tells me you’ve pissed off enough reporters to have lousy relationships with them. So I’m wondering, “What’d you do to screw up that relationship?”

9 – Show some personality: One reason Matter’s a great place to work is because of the interesting people who work here. One colleague went to clown school. I’m not making this up. Another sips Russian vodka and reads Tolstoy – but only in the winter. Another fronts a grindcore band. What makes you different? All of us work a lot. Why not surround ourselves with interesting personalities?

10 – How’s your jump shot? After-work basketball is a favorite pastime at Matter. So hoop skillz are a key asset in landing a job here. Note to HR department: JUST KIDDING. All our hiring decisions are made solely on the basis of PR skills and experience. (But seriously, how’s your crossover dribble?)

Everyone’s interview checklist is different. What did I leave out? What do you look for in a PR candidate?

I recently spoke with a friend who used to be a client.  Neither of us is tied to the company through which we met, but we stay in touch.  That company (I’ll call it ThatCo to protect the innocent) was recently included in an exposé of its industry at the hands of the Wall Street Journal. It’s the kind of story CEOs dread.  The week-long series shed a light on the industry’s accepted, self-policed business practices, and painted those practices as something the world should be concerned about, complete with paranoia-inducing headlines.  The story has since been echoed on NPR and in other outlets.

I’m not writing to condemn the industry’s practices, nor to call the Wall Street Journal irresponsible.  The industry is not out to do anyone harm, and I imagine it’s hard to draw eyeballs to the Wall Street Journal in August.  The story is engaging, and it is better that the general public be aware of these issues.

Not only does the story make sense, but we knew it was coming.  About two years ago the PR team conducted a media training session with ThatCo and we set aside a significant amount of time to cover this issue.  They had the messages – fact-based, reasonable, clear and easy to deliver.  I can say them to myself now.  We also covered when to use them.  This is apparently where the breakdown occurred.

ThatCo’s executive provided the “golden quote” – the one that instantly put miles of distance between a cool, collected executive and an enraged public.  The former client’s words were the first quote in the first story of the series.  Even the industry blogs that have since come out in defense of the client have repeated this quote.  I believe I’ve heard these words come from this client before, verbatim.  I don’t doubt for a second he said them. It’s the context, however, that makes me imagine a giddy reporter (and a reporter not prone to giddiness) stifling a squeal to avoid tipping off the unaware interview subject.

Someone missed a sign.  They followed a path that seemingly led to a glowing review of their mastery in creating value for customers, and forgot to deliver the messages that connect that value to responsible use of their powerful product.

I understand I risk sounding like a spurned partner in saying that if the company still had a PR firm, the spokesperson may have had a briefing sheet in hand that told him this reporter had previously won a Pulitzer for exposing corporate misdeeds.  He might have read the recent article in which that reporter covered a company that knowingly withheld information from customers.  He might have had someone on the line that cued him to step back and provide appropriate context for the reporter’s audience.

That’s water under the bridge, and it doesn’t help the ThatCo now.  But there is a learning opportunity to be had from this experience.  Below are 10 steps companies can take to help them avoid being ThatCo. The one that industry colleagues now look at with equal measures of shame, pity and accusation.  The one that has to explain to family and friends how he isn’t in an evil line of work.  The one that might get the cold shoulder from partners and clients “until this whole thing cools off.”

Before the interview:

1)      Know who you’re talking to. Look up their previous stories. Read their bio. At the very least, if the reporter tells you he or she need to conduct the interview in the next five minutes or the world will end, Google him or her while you’re talking.

2)      Get the context.  If you are discussing something controversial or easily misunderstood, ask the reporter what section the story will run in and who the audience is.  If they say they don’t know, assume it will be the audience least likely to understand.

During the interview:

3)      Hear yourself talk.  Understand how each soundbyte will sound in public.

4)      Ask questions.  Who else is the reporter talking to?  What do they think of the industry? What else are they covering?  Two minutes of seemingly idle chit chat can provide a world of information.

Before the story runs:

5)      Don’t be afraid to follow up.  If you feel you missed the opportunity to strike the right balance, send a note with more information.

After the story runs:

6)      Know how this affects your business.  Do the people who pay your bills already understand this issue?  Are they exposed along with you?  Do you need to defend yourself or take the fall in order to keep business running smoothly?

7)      Deliver the untold story in public.  ThatCo has responded in a blog, but missed the source of the real concern, and further, has yet to deliver the messages that connect value to customers with responsible use of the product.  To its credit, it stepped in the line of fire and offered to respond to any concerned parties.  It would have been better if that response was also public.

8)      Tell the truth, quickly.  This axiom of crisis communications applies to PR crises as well.  Don’t play the victim or pull back from the media or the false perception will sink in further. Use your newfound (if unwelcome) attention to fill the information gap.

9)      Understand this is now public record.  Expect the questions to come up again.  Have your answers on hand.

10)   Sympathize with the outrage. In this case, the company already had ways to accommodate anyone who didn’t approve of the standard industry practices.  They made these accommodations widely available, but until the series ran, most people didn’t take advantage of them.  If your company is not as prepared to respond to an angry audience, open your communications channels.  The only way to battle distrust is with honesty.

My friend, the ex-client, said grimly, ThatCo “finally got its Wall Street Journal story.” It turns out ThatCo got half of its story in the Wall Street Journal.  By demanding — and providing — transparency, it might not happen to you.

The Associated Press Stylebook has been guiding word usage, punctuation and grammar for countless reporters since 1953, and while it’s not the only style guide out there, it’s certainly the most popular. AP reporters are known for their strong reporting, and the Stylebook is constantly referenced to ensure consistency and excellence in writing. But as newer forms of media evolve, is there another set of rules needed for online content creation? Yahoo! thinks so.

Yahoo! has launched The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World, whose purpose is to provide a framework for grammar, punctuation, writing and editing for the Web. Some of the article topics in the guide include, “Streamline Text for Mobile Devices,” “Be Inclusive, Write for the World,” and “Construct Clear, Compelling Copy.” It also includes a word list and an “Ask an Editor” page to help clear up questions about word usage and upcoming developments for the guide.

As Mashable points out, there are a few points on which Yahoo! and the AP disagree, including whether to hyphenate e-mail (the AP says yes), and “smart phone” or “smartphone” (one word, according to Yahoo!). The overall topic is particularly timely, as Matter recently held a training session to refresh everyone on strong writing practices. We explored common mistakes that writers make and looked at the differences between the AP Stylebook and Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style.

But the debate came down to two core factors that guide Matter’s writing: consistency and client preferences. Often, Matter’s clients want their teams to bend AP writing rules, and as long as we’re consistent in our deliverables, the content we generate passes their tests. For example, serial commas are a source of debate between teams. Some clients require them (X, Y, and Z) and others don’t want them (leave out the comma before “and”). For the clients that don’t have a preference, we simply use them or don’t use them throughout all our writing.

It will be interesting to see to what degree writers gravitate towards the Yahoo! guide over the AP Stylebook, if at all. What do you think will happen?

I sat down to write this blog, ready to tell the people of the world wide web all they need to know about monotasking, and I couldn’t. At the same time I was digging up material to reference, I was sorting through my emails, perusing HootSuite for client mentions, pitching a new story idea, and so on. The longer I had an empty Word document in front of me, the more I realized how many other things I should and could be doing.

At a time when jobs are scarce, competition is fierce, and employees can expect to play various roles within an organization, why should we care about learning how to monotask? Monotasking, as defined, means focusing on a single task. However, I’ve yet to see a job description that reads “monotasker preferred.” Is this not a skill that is desired in the workforce? If not, why even bother trying to master the art of performing only one task? I’ll tell you why: because it works. Seriously. Try it. Look at your to-do list, pick one thing, and do it without any interruptions. Ignore email for a set length of time, hold your calls, and just finish the task. Listen, the world doesn’t stop when you take a break from your desk to grab a bite to eat, so why feel the need to open every email as soon as it hits your inbox once you are back in the office?

The truth is, as PR professionals, we have been trained to perform this way. With multiple clients and the need to always be “connected,” we are multitaskers at heart. Maybe this quality has become so engraved in our minds that we have overlooked the importance of monotasking. I think it’s time we give monotasking a chance.

To the colleague that introduced me to this phenomenon known as monotasking, I say thank you. You may have changed my world as I know it. I’ve always prided myself on my multitasking abilities, but am taking a stand for change. Power to the monotaskers! From this day forward, I strive to perfect the art of performing only one task at a time…right after I feed the cats while cooking dinner, call my mom while washing the dishes, read a book while watching the evening news…

*How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking – Harvard Business Review

*Multi-Tasking Vs. Mono-Tasking – Dumb Little Man

*Electronic Multitasking is a Brain Drain – SF Gate /The Tech Chronicles