Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
Valant Medical Solutions recently enlisted our help to assist with an announcement of $11 million in private equity investment. Valant is a leading provider of cloud-based, electronic health records (EHR) and e-billing software for behavioral health practices. This funding will enable Vālant to fund future growth in the behavioral health market segment and to broaden its EHR and e-billing suite capabilities for public behavioral health practices.
“This investment validates our vision of transforming the quality of behavioral health services through clinician-focused software tools,” said David Lischner, M.D., CEO and founder of Vālant. “As we look toward future growth, this additional funding better positions Vālant to help behavioral health practitioners objectively evaluate the results of their treatments with the goal of providing a higher quality-of-care for its patients.”
We have truly enjoyed working with Vālant thus far and are very excited about the coverage they received. Below we have included links to the articles highlighting details about the significance of this funding.
The European Union’s top court recently ordered that search engines within the EU adhere to “right to be forgotten” removal requests. The court ruled that Google and other search engines are “data controllers” and, as a result, are responsible for the content they display, meaning if an individual wishes for the removal of personal information that appears in a search of their name, the search engine will have to abide by the request and are required to pull any information the individual deems to be “inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant.”
According to an article from Forbes, though, the right to be forgotten still lacks implementation clarity. The EU is currently debating a new EU Data Protection Regulation that will be more concrete and clear as to how and where this applies to EU residents’ protection. The article points out that companies need to be prepared because this new regulation will apply to EU residents no matter where the resident’s data is collected.
At the end of June 2014, Google began pulling search results in compliance with the ruling. According to an article from The Wall Street Journal, Google received 41,000 requests in the first four days. Google has updated its technical infrastructure to meet this demand and has hired a “removals team” to assess each individual request. Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing have said that they will soon begin implementing a removal process in response to the European court’s decision as well.
Controversy over this removal process is sure to arise, as some see this as censorship left to Google and other search engines’ discretion. However, those in favor of protecting the public’s privacy point out that search-result removal only occurs if the search results are from a search of the individual’s name and are not removed from all search results.
WSJ’s article also pointed to signs that this option for removal of personal information in name searches may transpire in other countries soon. Allen Chiang Yam-wang, Hong Kong’s top privacy regulator, recently wrote about predictions for Canada and Japan to soon follow in the footsteps of Europe. Yam-wang suggested that Google apply its removal processes globally, as cases are soon to follow in more and more countries.
It will be interesting to see how the right to be forgotten ruling evolves in the EU and where else implementation of similar processes might occur. I am further curious to see how this affects search engine processes in the U.S., because of censorship claims. What’s your take? Is allowing search engines to remove personal search results protecting the public’s privacy or is it censorship?
Think about the last time you moved to a new apartment or home – you probably did not do it alone. After all, it is nearly impossible for one person to move a sofa or bed solo. Like many things in life, moving is simply much easier and faster with the help of a well-organized team, be it friends, family or professional movers.
Nevertheless, not all teams are equal in their productivity and effectiveness. Some teams are excited to be working together and appear to be having fun doing the work, while others are dysfunctional or seem doomed for failure. Successful teams, if you take a closer look, all have leaders who invoke the same five basic steps.
1. They set clear goals and objectives. When moving, the goals and objectives are clear – you need to move furniture and belongings from point A to point B. In business settings, however, the goals and objectives are not always as straightforward. The most effective team leaders involve teammates in the goal-setting process so everyone has shared expectations around what they are trying to achieve, and they do this before ever assigning projects or tasks. Effective teams know goals help ensure everyone is focused on the right activities at the right time – without them, everyone runs the risk of wasting time and energy.
2. They make sure the team has clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Good leaders know that role confusion can lead to frustration. Most people want to understand how they will contribute to reaching the goal and what they will be accountable for doing. Whenever possible, assign tasks to people based on their strengths or desire to learn new things or develop new skills.
3. They regroup regularly to monitor progress and results. Leaders have predefined critical milestones so they know if they are on track or falling behind. If they find they are falling behind or stuck on a task, effective team leaders, and strong team members, ask for help so they can make adjustments in time to achieve the goal. In monitoring the progress, it is also important not to blame anyone if things go wrong, but instead focus what can be done immediately to achieve the goal.
4. They design feedback loops into the work. Consider this classic example of the feedback loop: A company has a wonderful culture and offers terrific benefits, which leads to positive reviews on Glassdoor, which further leads to a bigger pool of qualified candidates and more good hires. The smart team looks for opportunities to create positive feedback loops. An effective business development team gets good at defining its ideal customer, which leads to an increase in sales, which then leads to an even better understanding of what customers are looking for from its product and services. For more on this topic, check out this article in Smashing Magazine.
5. They leverage technology for all of the above steps. Team leaders understand that effective leadership means keeping people informed and taking a democratic approach to sharing information. Solutions such as online collaboration software Smartsheet enable this. With Smartsheet, leaders can outline goals, tactics, and milestones and, because it is cloud-based, teammates can access this productivity tool from their PCs, tablets and cellphones. They can also set up dependencies for key projects with alerts. And it is easy to design reports and surveys to quickly identify and optimize positive feedback loops.
Productive teams are vital to getting things done, and you can vastly improve you team’s productivity – and happiness – by taking these five steps. Helen Keller stated it well when she said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
For more information on our use and work with Smartsheet, please check out these articles:
- Smartsheet Secures Another $35 Million
- Building Homes with Smartsheet
- Smartsheet Goes on the Road
- Smartsheet Announces $26 Million in Venture Funding
Congratulations to Communiqué PR client Medio on their acquisition by Nokia’s HERE division! The companies announced the acquisition plans June 12 and since then the news has garnered nearly 100 articles from outlets including TechCrunch, Bloomberg, PC Magazine, Wireless Week and GeekWire, to name just a few.
HERE, a leader in navigation, mapping and location experience, plans to leverage Medio’s expertise in real-time predictive analytics to bolster its location intelligence capabilities. As a result, we could soon see contextual maps and location services that change according to the situation to provide highly personalized and predictive experiences for people and businesses.
We’ve had the pleasure of working with Medio since 2012 when Communiqué was brought on to undertake a number of initiatives to boost awareness for the company including analyst and media relations and thought-leadership programs for its senior executives.
Medio is the seventh company in our portfolio to have been acquired or sold and we’re proud to have played a part in helping each of these companies grow their profiles in their respective industries:
- Medio (acquired by HERE in 2014)
- Twisted Pair Solutions (acquired by Motorola in 2013)
- Melodeo (acquired by Hewlett-Packard Co. in 2010)
- Open Interface (acquired by Qualcomm in 2008)
- SnapIn (acquired by Nuance Communications in 2008)
- Tegic Communications, a subsidiary of AOL (acquired by Nuance Communications in 2007)
- The Shops at the Bravern (purchased by Ashkenazy Acquisition in 2012)
These liquidity events are great examples of how a focused approach to PR can help organizations build buzz, elevate their perceived value, and in turn fulfill an exit strategy or close a strategic sale.
Congratulations to Rob Lilleness, Brian Lent, Beau Ross and the rest of the Medio team!
As PR professionals, we love the adrenaline rush of landing that big interview for a client with the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg or the New York Times, and yet few outside of the industry actually understand the myriad of factors reporters consider when deciding whether or not to open up our emails, respond to our pitches or put pen to paper. As someone with experience both on the sending and receiving-end of story pitches, I can tell you that successful PR comes in keeping reporters informed about company news, providing the right sources and then knowing when to get out of the way to let writers do what they do best.
It’s not to say that journalists don’t appreciate all the hard work PR people do to keep them informed – they just have so many other demands on their time and are under tremendous pressure to constantly research ever-changing industries, meet deadlines, follow breaking news on Twitter and TechMeme, conduct interviews and of course, write!
Journalism is indeed an art form and reporters respect PR pros who share the same love and respect for the craft and the profession. The most successful public relations representatives have a knack for writing that can be communicated through email pitches, understand the industries reporters cover and have an innate desire to help writers do their job better and more efficiently. Demands on reporters’ time coupled with the erosion of traditional publishing channels have forced journalists to compete with global news cycles, weighing the speed and accuracy of the stories they publish with the timeliness of breaking world news events.
In order to help reporters get what they need to write their stories, PR practitioners should use the following basic principles to make an impact for clients and build trusted relationships with journalists:
Know Their News Beats – Nothing is more annoying to journalists than receiving a pitch that is completely off base from the industries they write about. As PR professionals, it’s our job to constantly read their articles to understand what angles will resonate with a particular reporter and then package up client information to help build a compelling narrative.
Know What is News, And What’s Not – While companies and marketing departments want to constantly shout their news from the rooftops, what a company considers to be news may not always be perceived as newsworthy to a reporter. Business press typically never cover product or funding news while the trades are often more than willing to write about these topics as long as there is a solid hook. Savvy PR executives should examine upcoming company news with a critical lens to provide recommendations to clients about the newsworthiness of announcements and a strategy for effective media relations.
Understand the Right Times/Ways to Pitch – With hefty demands on reporters’ times, make sure to adhere to any specification as to the format writers wish to receive unsolicited content. While the more established generation of reporters don’t mind the occasional phone call, younger writers who have grown up in a world of texting and email often prefer email pitches over calls that may disrupt their day. When you do make call-downs, always ask if they have a few minutes to chat before going into your pitch, since many are on deadlines throughout the week.
Demonstrate Knowledge of the Industry – The role of a PR person can extend beyond simply offering up a source and scheduling interviews. Since we work closely within the industries we represent, there are opportunities to both educate reporters about trends we are seeing, and where the technology landscape may be heading. As such, it’s important to thoroughly understand a client’s products and services to accurately field questions and communicate where product offerings fit into the competitive landscape and how they are differentiated from others.
Help Assemble the Story – While many reporters may already have a particular story angle in mind when agreeing to an interview, as PR pros it’s important to provide quick snippets of information in pitches, often through metric-driven bullet points, trends, additional customer sources, case studies and multimedia. If you are pitching television outlets, make sure you have compelling visuals that can help supplement the story. For radio segments, think about audio storytelling and how sound, music and background ambient noise can help drive a story forward.
The field of journalism is essential for our society to function properly, for without the freedom to write, report and express ourselves as individuals, we go about our daily lives without context. PR colleagues, don’t get discouraged by the occasional rejection, take pride in the services you provide for your clients and know you have a valuable role in helping provide the one thing that fosters a more educated society – knowledge and the free flow of information.