Hoosier PRSA Blog

Have an opinion about Hoosier PRSA luncheons? Let's here it!

The Hoosier PRSA Professional Development team is planning educational programs for the coming year and considering a variety of logistical options for 2010, such as hosting events at various locations statewide and via teleconference.

We are interested to hear the preferences of chapter membership. Please take a moments to complete a brief Program Logistics Survey to help guide future efforts.

Survey responses will be accepted through Friday, December 18.

Moving forward, recommendations from the membership are always welcomed via email. Immediate opportunities for participation and feedback are identified below.

Call for Presentations
You've spent years honing your skills as a PR professional. Now share your expertise with more than 400 PR pros from around the State of Indiana. The Professional Development team is currently accepting presentation submissions for 2010 luncheons, Meet the Media and other professional development programs. Topics of interest include social media and emerging trends, media relations, relationship and reputation management, communications planning and measurement, management and leadership, techniques and tactics, and PR success stories, among others. 

Submissions should be e-mailed to Jeremy Ecenbarger, 2010 director of professional development, by Friday, January 8, 2010, with the following information:

• Name, Title, Organization, Address, Zip, Telephone and E-mail
• If more than one presenter, please include information for each and designate the lead presenter
• Proposed title of presentation
• Brief description (100 words max)
• Bio for each presenter (max 200 words; if speakers have not yet identified, please share in as much detail as possible what types of speakers you are securing
• List three main learning objectives

For more information, please contact Jeremy Ecenbarger at jeremy.ecenbarger@highpoint-solutions.com.

In memoriam: Beth Wood, 58, lecturer at Indiana University

An excerpt from the IU School of Journalism web site:

The Indiana University School of Journalism community will gather Thursday, Nov. 19, for a Celebration of Life in honor of senior lecturer Beth Wood, who died Saturday afternoon from complications of treatment for lung cancer.

Faculty, staff, students and friends are welcome to attend this informal gathering any time from 6-8 p.m. at the Fountain Square Ballroom, 101 W. Kirkwood Ave., Bloomington.

Wood, 58, taught public relations at the graduate and undergraduate levels. In 2004, she helped launch the IU chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America and led it to become the seventh-largest student chapter in the world. In 2008, she led the successful effort for Indiana University to become one of only 20 universities to receive certification from the Public Relations Society of America. 

Read the complete story: http://journalism.indiana.edu/news/school-mourns-loss-of-beth-wood/

Ghost Blogging As A Public Relations Tool

Squidoo is a wealth of information. Today I read a nice treatment on the utility of ghost blogging. It's a practice that's cause some to decry the ethics of such writing -- warning us that communication blurs and transparency becomes opaque. Who's writing what?

But ghost blogging is no different than a public relations professional penning a bylined article for a CEO. David Kirkpatrick a fiction writer and journalist has published in newspapers and magazines. His work includes web content, ghost fiction writing, and short fiction. His take is apropos for the debate among PR professionals and others in Indianapolis.

"The death of any blog is a lack of activity," writes Kirkpatrick. "All too often corporate blogs are created with the best of intentions only to be allowed to wither on the vine, so to speak, from lack of activity and regular posts."

His point is echoed by others. Lindsay Manfredi writes, "I help companies piece together what they have to say. It’s not always right the first time. They approve it or I make changes to make the message clearer. It’s not rocket science, it’s a SERVICE." The notion that ghost blogging is inauthentic, unethical -- it's not real -- to Manfredi's is BS.

Which is true. "For C-level executives with a blog," Kirkpatrick argues, "a pro ghost blogger can maintain the exec's 'voice' while taking quick bits of information the executive finds interesting to craft fully realized and maximized blog posts."

Succinctly he states the benefit: "This frees the top corporate level to concentrate on what they do best -- run the company -- and still keep a steady supply of relevant and interesting posts on their blog."

The idea behind corporate blogging is not to wax poetic, but to drive conversion. From a public relations POV, driving journalists to a corporate blog for the latest news builds better media relations. The business that's using a blog to attract the media and position itself as a thought leader in a given industry, essentially becomes a mini-Rueters  or a small AP. Not all CEOs know how to write for the media, but a trained public relations professional ghost blogging for his (or her) company does -- and there's nothing unethical about that.

Nice Overview of Changes to PRSA Bylaws

I'm sure more details will be shared from PRSA in the future, but for anyone interested in an overview of some of the changes, this blog post on PRSAY by Mike Cherenson does a better job than I could do.

If I see a more detailed report, I'll post it to our blog as well. Now, the PRSA staff, lawyer and parliamentarian (who were AMAZING, BTW) will be cleaning up the language and creating templates for local chapters. As promised to you before, we'll be evaluating that template for our own Chapter's adoption consideration. If there are any volunteers who'd like to lead that effort for us, I'd love to have your assistance.

Kind regards,

Jamaison Schuler, APR

Cathy Kightlinger's Talk Of Our Town Tip Sheet

If you were unable to attend today's monthly luncheon, you missed a great Meet the Media panel with The Indianapolis Star which consisted of editors Jenny Green, Steve Berta and reporter Cathy Kightlinger. You can find some tidbits of their advice to PR pros on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HoosierPRSA.

As promised, here are Cathy's tips for her "Talk Of Our Town" column: Download Cathy Kightlinger¹s Talk of Our Town Tip Sheet

Be on the lookout for registration information for our final Meet the Media session of 2009 scheduled for December 8 and 10 at the WIBC studios. We'll take a live look-in during Steve Simpson's afternoon radio program. Space will be limited!