Rwanda Girls Initiative’s Back to School Celebration
Last night, the Communiqué PR team attended a “back to school” celebration in support of the Rwanda Girls Initiative (RGI), a not-for-profit organization formed with the goal of opening a girls’ secondary school in Rwanda. The school is now open, in its third academic year, and its first class will graduate on October 4, 2013. […]
Avoiding Plagiarism
Earlier this week I was chatting with one of my colleagues about Time magazine’s suspension of respected writer and CNN TV host Fareed Zakaria for plagiarism. It got me thinking about the topic and I decided it might be helpful to offer a reminder of what plagiarism is as well as tips on how to […]
Competency-Based Development
Who isn’t striving to get better in some area of his/her professional or personal life? If you or someone on your team has a development need or simply a desire for continuous improvement, I have a book recommendation for you. It is FYI For Your Improvement, a guide for development and coaching. In its fourth […]
Recommended Reading: The Power of Habit
Many situations occur in business repetitively and we often build processes around those activities. For instance, when hiring new employees, many companies and managers have an onboarding process they routinely follow. Similarly, when preparing for a new business meeting, we at Communiqué PR have outlined a process which we typically follow. The book The Power […]
Five Best Practices Surrounding Messaging Workshops
Earlier this week, we facilitated a two-hour messaging workshop for a new Communiqué PR technology client. The goal was to discuss the company’s mission and vision, as well as hone in on its value proposition and distill that information into several compelling key messages. The messaging workshop was a big success and it got me […]
Recommended Reading: Jonah Lehrer’s Book on Creativity
For those who regularly follow our blog, you know that one of my favorite topics is creativity. I have a personal interest in learning about creativity and how to foster it. So it was with enthusiasm, that I listened to an NPR interview with Jonah Lehrer, the author of a new book entitled, Imagine: How […]
Collaboration
Lately we have been thinking about and redefining our corporate values, and one of them surrounds collaboration. At Communiqué PR, we highly value collaborative relationships with our clients, co-workers and business partners. Given we place a premium on collaboration, I decided to do some reading about what it means, why it is important, and how […]
Our Client-Service Ethic
Recently I have been reflecting on Communiqué PR’s standard of practice and our philosophy around client service. Colleen Moffitt and I feel passionately about the topic and how we apply these standards. Here is how we describe our client-service ethic: 1. First and foremost, it means having a client-centered perspective, acknowledging the clients’ needs and […]
The Power of Being Wrong & Making Mistakes
On my way to lunch in early December, I happened to catch Kathryn Schulz on KUOW’s The Conversation talking about her new book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin and Error, and the value of being wrong and making mistakes. It caught my ear because in public relations, we strive to be mistake-free. In addition […]
The CEO’s Vital Role in Public Relations
If you are the CEO of a company large or small, you undoubtedly are busy thinking about myriad issues ranging from customer satisfaction, trends surrounding revenue growth, and alignment of resources, to recruiting, innovation, establishing direction and external changes, to name a few. In the midst of all of this, it is easy to forget […]