tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33742983218744426942024-03-12T17:58:09.459-05:00Lockstep on PRNotes from a teacher - and lifetime student - of public relations.Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-81704974346034668902013-05-24T15:02:00.000-05:002013-05-24T15:02:26.683-05:00Edelman Trust Barometer 2013 on Employee EngagementEdelman has released the results of its 2013 Annual Global Study on Employee Engagement Practice. Here is a summary infographic; there's more detail on the study's findings on Edelman's site.
Employee Engagement Insights from Edelman's 2013 Trust Barometer infographic
Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-3660312863796466002013-01-15T09:36:00.000-06:002013-01-15T09:36:27.740-06:00"References available on request"CreComm is back for the winter semester -- which, for those in second year, is also their final semester of the program. In the PR Major, we've been talking about how to "package" all your experience and training for prospective employers.
Over the years I've blogged on a number of different aspects of this topic, drawing on my years as a hiring manager. For easy reference, here are Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-27704476661010800252012-11-06T09:52:00.000-06:002012-11-06T09:52:45.998-06:00Social media and criticism
Photo from politicspa.com
It's election day in the United States, which means the campaigning that has taken over American (and some Canadian) media discourse is almost at an end.
In the last couple of weeks, we've noticed a theme of campaign fatigue working its way into news stories, pundit commentary and "everyday folk" opinions; we're ready for this thing to be over.
Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-58474785498147303612012-09-12T13:42:00.003-05:002012-09-12T13:42:56.431-05:00Ethics: your career is more important than your job
From lancearmstrong.com
In the PR Major this week, Laina Hughes gave a thought-provoking presentation on Lance Armstrong's recent announcement that he would give up the fight against doping charges (without admitting to the charges).
It was natural, given the topic, that our discussion should turn to ethics -- and in particular, the ethics of communicating for a client who isn't Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-2722990429019786402012-09-05T08:56:00.000-05:002012-09-05T08:56:21.145-05:00Blogging: who decides what's interesting?This week, 78 new Creative Communications students at Red River College will launch blogs -- many of them for the first time. (They'll be posted on the CreComm Blog Network by the end of the week.)
Blogs, blogs everywhere
NM Incite, a McKinsey/Nielsen company, tracked more than 181 million blogs by the end of 2011. There is a blog on just about any topic you can imagine -- from the Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-29284855671241302602012-06-06T21:44:00.000-05:002012-09-03T23:18:52.660-05:00Your social media presence and your PR job hunt
Image from www.wycliffecollege.ca
Ask (almost) anyone in PR these days whether you should have an active presence on social media if you're looking for a job in the industry, and they'll say "yes."
While not every PR job uses social media at this point, most employers want to hire people who keep up with advances in the ways people communicate. After all, if and when their audiences "get Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-41668433052443200082012-05-07T11:32:00.001-05:002012-05-07T11:32:46.058-05:00Blog as I say, not as I do
Image from allneonsigns.com
Lately, I have not been a good blogger.
My blog has been a bit like a local restaurant my husband and I like: we occasionally arrive at the door during "normal" business hours, only to find it closed.
We like the food, but over time, we've stopped even bothering to go -- it's a hassle to go there and find out we have to find someplace else to eat.
That's not Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-53146542317753197282012-02-14T22:00:00.001-06:002012-02-14T22:00:30.196-06:00Talk when your publics are listening (and listen when your publics are talking)First-year Creative Communications students are building their first publicity campaigns; in class, we're talking a lot about how to plan publicity activities to have the best shot at earning our publics' attention. We think about our audiences' preferences and habits when we choose tools, when we choose locations, when we choose messages... and when we choose timing.
We know more people Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-32542277647938301012012-01-31T21:40:00.000-06:002012-01-31T21:40:37.147-06:00Speeches: when to call an audible
This past weekend, tennis fans were treated to an extraordinary match in the final of the Australian Open in Melbourne, in which world #1 Novak Djokovic beat world #2 Rafael Nadal 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-5.
The match lasted almost six hours; as the Telegraph put it, it "was certainly the longest, surely the hardest and arguably the greatest Grand Slam final in history."
The Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-28686409185763823922012-01-27T15:39:00.000-06:002012-01-27T15:42:04.355-06:00Tim's re-names its coffee cup sizes: PR or not PR?I love Tim Hortons coffee, and since there's a Tim's here at The Roblin Centre, I buy at least 5 cups a week.
Until last week, the cups I bought were usually "large;" now, the very same cup is "medium." To make room for a new 24 oz size (bigger than what was formerly called "extra large"), the company has re-named all its existing coffee cup sizes and added a new "extra small."
Source: Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-36829601667276885612012-01-04T16:29:00.002-06:002012-01-04T21:47:31.786-06:00What constitutes a PR problem?
A tweet this afternoon led me to a story on the O'Dwyer's PR site entitled "Google, Starbucks Take First PR Blows of 2012."
The O'Dwyer's article linked to a piece in the New York Times, which quoted a retired NYPD bomb squad member on how Starbucks' Frappuccino bottle makes a suitable container for a Molotov cocktail, after an arsonist used the bottles in a series of firebomb attacks in Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-34981630435949208232011-12-01T12:43:00.001-06:002011-12-01T15:15:29.115-06:00Misspelling... on purpose
Graphic from Carey's presentation
This morning, Carey Gatz, Online Marketing Supervisor at online pharmacy CanadaDrugs.com, gave first-year Creative Communications students a valuable primer in search engine optimization ("SEO").
As an online pharmacy, CanadaDrugs.com's business success relies heavily on its customers' ability to find it on the web -- so Carey Gatz and his team Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-71415659262623989072011-11-22T10:20:00.001-06:002011-11-22T12:52:31.499-06:00The PR value of being niceI had to call a company this morning whose employees almost invariably treat me like I'm an idiot.
It's not that there's one cranky employee, or that I happened to catch one normally friendly employee on an off day: every single interaction I have with the (multiple) staff in this business is unpleasant -- and has been over the course of a few years. And it's not just me: friends have reported Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-6215319651944870552011-10-27T14:07:00.000-05:002011-10-27T14:07:51.258-05:00ApologiesThe Winnipeg Free Press has been reporting this week on a "ground-breaking" event that happened today in Halifax, at the third of seven national Truth and Reconciliation Commission events: University of Manitoba President David Barnard apologized for his university's role in educating perpetrators of the abuse aboriginal children, families and communities suffered under the Indian Residential Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-82527421425540025582011-10-19T16:15:00.000-05:002011-10-19T16:18:32.021-05:00RIM: how long should a response wait?There have been plenty of articles and blog posts blasting Research in Motion (RIM)'s decision to wait before talking to its customers (and investors, and the watching world) about the major outage its BlackBerry service experienced last week. An October 12th article in PR News summed up what many were saying with a quote from Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former head Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-60781018998438164922011-09-28T11:57:00.000-05:002011-09-28T11:57:49.856-05:00Why get accredited in PR?This year, I've taken on the role of Accreditation Director for the Manitoba chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society ("CPRS"), after having been grading APR work samples and exams for the better part of a decade.
Here's how CPRS describes its accreditation on its website:
Accreditation CPRS Accreditation (APR) is a respected measure of professional experience in the Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-88932318060942394842011-09-21T22:35:00.000-05:002011-09-21T22:35:42.801-05:00Alton Brown's "Fanifesto"
Photo from
http://www.foodnetwork.com/good-eats/index.html
This week, ahead of a planned publicity tour promoting a new book, Food Network star Alton Brown issued "My Fanifesto" on his website: a list of rules of comportment when meeting him in person.
Before you decide whether this is a bad idea from a PR perspective, give it a read.
Reaction I've seen online so far has been mixed; Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-79092813997678010112011-09-13T16:23:00.000-05:002011-09-13T16:23:34.927-05:00Using Twitter... professionallyThere's a fair bit of conversation online around how to grow one's Twitter "followers" number. One answer: become a college instructor, and assign your students to join Twitter and follow you!
By the end of this week, Red River College's first-year Creative Communications students will all be on Twitter. Interestingly, for the first time this year (in my classes at least), more first-year Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-55864863285996196542011-09-11T11:00:00.000-05:002011-09-11T11:00:50.250-05:00Of mountains and molehills in election campaignsIn my first-year PR classes this week, we've been introducing the whole concept of PR, and specifically, the fundamental importance of understanding your audiences.
As is normal in my classes, we began on Tuesday with a few minutes of "PR in the news," in which we look at a story that's getting attention in the mainstream media and discuss what it might mean for the parties involved. The Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-89569163875138868282011-08-26T11:39:00.000-05:002011-08-26T11:39:26.850-05:00PR cover letter advice part 2: describing your experienceA Creative Communications grad recently asked me to look over a cover letter he'd written to apply for a job in PR, and it raised a topic I hadn't thought to include in my previous post on writing a good cover letter: how to position work you did as a volunteer or as a student.
When you're applying for a job, you want to put your best foot forward. You want the potential employer to know about Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-21299931423341530462011-08-17T20:34:00.000-05:002011-08-17T20:34:02.146-05:00When should a charity refuse a donation?One of my students in this fall’s PR Major tweeted me last week with a suggestion for a blog topic.
Her link led me to Lindor Reynolds’ column in last Wednesday’s Winnipeg Free Press, “Hooters, cancer drive a bad business combo.”
In a nutshell (this is my summary, but click the link for the full story), Reynolds feels the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation shouldn’t accept donations Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-18294668920656220082011-07-29T14:32:00.001-05:002011-07-30T03:51:42.023-05:00With social media, companies should go all-inI recently caught up with a communicator friend I hadn’t seen in a long time, and as will inevitably happen, we started talking about PR.
Specifically, we were talking about how important it is for businesses whose audiences are using social media to participate in social media – and the challenge that remains, especially in larger corporations, in persuading upper management that engaging Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-19521060628144413062011-07-19T12:02:00.002-05:002011-07-19T21:22:13.476-05:00A great opportunity!In PR, you'll get lots of great opportunities for great opportunities.
Our skills are "soft" -- most of the value of what we sell comes from inside our brains. We sell ideas and approaches, words and images. They're not hard goods with a wholesale cost and a mark-up.
We do things others value, but to which others don't always assign a dollar value.
If you ran a candy shop, people would likely Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-87524397446956596692011-07-12T15:55:00.000-05:002011-07-12T15:55:36.551-05:00Tire-kicking on Google+Late last week, I succumbed to the temptation and joined Google+, the latest shiny new thing social media has to offer.
A word of warning before I begin: I am a beginner on this platform. I haven't spent more than a few hours on Google+, and so am no expert. If I get anything wrong in this post, please do me and my readers the favour of correcting me in the comments, below - thanks!
Mashable.com Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3374298321874442694.post-47628982272981453812011-06-28T23:31:00.000-05:002011-06-28T23:31:50.025-05:00But for the apostrophe, it was a perfect lunchAny student in the Creative Communications program at Red River College, where I teach PR, will tell you we're a little bit nuts about accuracy and grammar in writing. Whether you're majoring in journalism, advertising or public relations, it's pretty tough to build a successful career if you can't write properly.
Misspell a proper name in our program and your assignment gets an "F," no matter Melanie Lee Lockhart, APRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601366118515410834noreply@blogger.com3