After the Sago Mine incident, I think that it has become clear how important basic facts are in a crisis situation where we might serve as the main public communicator.

Once again, I was reminded last night how critical it is to check and double-check your facts.

The local San Antonio Red Cross Community Affairs Manager Trish Box and I were teaching a Public Affairs 1 class to a class of about 20 volunteers interested in helping with the public affairs function at the local chapter here in San Antonio.

I got involved with the Red Cross on 9-11 when I was working in read more...

What is your guess for the overall total number of feeds that will be in the PR Blogs List at the end of 2006? Let's have a friendly guessing contest. In my post about the explosive growth of PR Blogs, I asked Constantin Basturea to update us on the number of "blogs" since the 330 number he gave as of December 31, 2005. Here was his response in comments: To respond to your question: as of today (Jan. 31, 2006), read more...

Join them. Via Bulldog Reporter, we read that the The New York Times reported today that Time Inc. plans on cutting 100 more positions, including 10 at Time magazine. The interesting part of this announcement is that the layoffs are geared toward realigning resources toward new technologies. “…We're moving from being a magazine publishing company to a multiplatform media company, and we have to reallocate our assets. The people you need, the read more...

Sometimes simple things are best. Dave Gray of Communication Nation shares with us his friend Alberto Boin’s 3-step recipe for effective communication: Headline: Your headline is the Result: What you want the person to learn or do. Example: "Chocolate Cake" or "How to write a memo." Ingredients: What are the necessary components that you must have in order to do the thing? Example: Milk, eggs, etc., or "Working knowledge of C++. Recipe: Step-by-step instructions that describe "how to make it" or "how to do it." Thanks to Dave and read more...

There is a great conversation that started on Friday and is still going today over at On Message with John Waggner about the explosive growth of the PR blogging world and how the growth will change our not-so-little community. If you haven’t been there yet, take a few minutes to go and add your 2-cents or just read all of the insightful comments. It was just December 31, 2005 that Constantin Basturea, the keeper of the PR read more...