I have been involved with the Red Cross as a volunteer in the Public Affairs function since 2001, when I just showed up at the Arlington, Va., chapter on September 11 to see "how I could help." Because of the scale of the disaster that day, most supply trucks couldn’t get into the area. I called local supermarkets who donated food to supply the volunteers and firefighters working on the disaster. You can read about my experience that day in this newsletter article I wrote in 2001 (read more...

Okay, I admit this headline is a little sensational. But I got my daily PRSA Issues and Trends e-mail and I wasn’t too surprised to read that an annual census by Catalyst, a women’s advocacy group, shows that women only held 16.4 percent of corporate officer positions in Fortune 500 companies in 2005.

This was not particularly surprising to me.

What really caught my eye though was this result, which was buried a little bit lower in the report (page 2):

Women in Line, Staff, and Clout Positions
Women read more...

I have been reading Ben Silverman, who pens an e-newsletter for e-releases PR Fuel since at least March of 2004 -- well before I even knew there were bloggers writing about the topic of public relations.

I like Silverman’s quips and strong opinions, as well as his insights as a former journalist, and I still read his column when it appears in my e-mail. In read more...

It has been awhile since I have run my Cool Tools column. But today I read that JotSpot just released an upgrade to its service that includes collaborative calendars, spreadsheets, file repositories, and photo galleries. It also allows the user to fully control the look and feel of the site.

Way back when (October 2005), before I started Communication Overtones, I signed up for a free wiki at JotSpot. I read more...

Lies 2
Originally uploaded by kassaf20. First, let me say that I love research. But lately it seems as if there is a lot of it out there and few are offering critical thought around how to interpret all of these results.

I am not immune to this. As we hurry through our days, with client work piling up on the desk, it is tempting to report on new studies without spending too much time analyzing them.

read more...