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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.

2020 Year-End Results: Spaceflight Inc.

A rendering of Spaceflight’s Sherpa-FX vehicle. Image courtesy of Spaceflight Inc.

2020, despite the challenges it presented, proved to be another exciting and successful year for our client Spaceflight Inc., the leading launch services and mission management provider.

The space industry didn’t go unaffected by the challenges the pandemic presented, yet Spaceflight still executed five launches, introduced a new innovative service, secured major partnerships, and was acquired by Mitsui & Co., Ltd., in partnership with Yamasa Co., Ltd. With a variety of exciting developments and milestones, we maintained a strong cadence of press releases, demonstrating Spaceflight’s continued momentum regardless of outside challenges.

While these unpredicted and unprecedented circumstances weren’t welcomed, they did present an opportunity from a PR perspective. Many industry leaders and journalists were eager to understand how the pandemic would impact the industry, both in the short term and the long term. To demonstrate the Spaceflight leadership team’s expertise and industry knowledge, we developed and distributed several proactive pitches that highlighted its perspective on how the industry would adapt to the challenges presented by the pandemic or what trends would be created from these unforeseen circumstances. This led to a number of interviews, including podcast interviews and articles that highlighted Spaceflight’s thought leadership and understanding of the industry as a whole.

Finally, one of the most exciting and effective strategies we implemented this year was a virtual media tour. Spaceflight announced its new Sherpa-NG program, a family of ESPA-class space vehicles that are designed to minimize development timelines while maximizing flight and schedule reliability and mission assurance. With everyone’s new comfort around navigating video calls and this new piece of hardware, it felt like the perfect time to execute a virtual media tour. Spaceflight is preparing for the launch of its first vehicle early next year, so there was a piece of hardware ready to show to the media. Not only were we able to demonstrate the progress of this innovative service offering, Spaceflight’s leadership team was also able to discuss the vast benefits of this program and the role this type of hardware will play in the future.

Below are some of the exciting results from this year. Congratulations on a successful 2020, Spaceflight!

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2020 Year-End Results: BitTitan Thought Leadership Extends Overseas

To say the least, this past year has been one of unprecedented change. The phrase “new normal” has entered our daily lexicon, as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly altered how we live, gather, socialize and work. No person nor business has been immune to the change.

Our client BitTitan, a Seattle-based cloud enablement company that is the developer of MigrationWiz and specializes in managed services automation, is no different. However, as a company that specializes in SaaS-based automated tools and that relied on a dispersed workforce prior to the pandemic, BitTitan found itself uniquely positioned to not only navigate some of the changes brought on by the pandemic, but help other companies do so as well.

Working with Communiqué PR since 2018, BitTitan has provided industry expertise and insight through contributed content and thought leadership articles to publications across the tech and IT industry. Last year, BitTitan’s editorial coverage amounted to 91 articles, with 21 percent of those articles falling into the “top tier” coverage category, meaning the outlet achieved a domain authority (a search engine ranking score) of 75/100 or higher.

This year, BitTitan expanded its thought leadership efforts to extend beyond North America to overseas markets in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and India, to name a few. After all, BitTitan is a global company and needs a global audience.

As the year comes to a close, we tallied the results that BitTitan has achieved. In doing so, we found that, to date, our work with BitTitan has resulted in the following:  

  • 73 articles published in North America
  • 13 articles published in France
  • 12 articles published in India
  • 9 articles published in Germany
  • 8 articles published in the U.K.

… and another article published in Australia for a grand total of 116 articles in 2020, with just over a week left in the year.

Of the articles in North America, 15 percent were published by top-tier outlets. Twenty-five percent of the articles published in the U.K. were by top-tier outlets, while 15 percent of the articles in France were top-tier coverage.

Yes, it’s been one crazy, chaotic year. But fortunately, companies like BitTitan have been around to help other companies move their workloads to the cloud, mobilize remote work plans, implement digital transformations and continue operations. At Communiqué PR, we’re thrilled to work alongside BitTitan and promote the amazing things they’re doing to a global audience.

 

You can find links to some of BitTitan’s thought leadership articles and international coverage below.

Moving to the Cloud

 

Tips on Working Remotely

 

What Our ‘New Normal’ Will Look Like

 

Australia

 

The U.K.

 

France

 

Germany

 

India

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A Primer on Communication Toolkits: What They Include and How They’re Used

Recently, I was asked to describe the purpose of a communication toolkit and thought it would be helpful to provide some details on what they are and how people use them.

The communication toolkit typically includes ready-made materials or template materials that can be customized by others to aid them in achieving a particular goal. The goal might be education, crisis communication, providing talking points to partners or helping employees be better brand ambassadors.

Consider the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) creation of a COVID-19 Vaccination Communication Toolkit. In this case, the CDC has created materials that can be used by healthcare teams to build confidence about COVID-19 vaccinations. These materials are for medical centers, clinics and clinicians, but are also accessible to the general public on the CDC website.

When we inspect their toolkit, we find an impressive array of materials, including:

  • Tips on Getting Started. An introduction to six strategies that healthcare professionals can use to build vaccine confidence within the health system or clinic, along with companion tools such as a communication readiness checklist and tips on how to start the conversation. The six strategies include:
    • Encouraging senior leaders to be vaccine champions.
    • Hosting discussions where personnel can ask questions.
    • Sharing key messages with staff through emails, breakroom posters, and other channels.
    • Educating teams about the vaccines and how they were developed.
    • Educating non-medical staff about the importance of getting vaccinated. And,
    • Making the decision to get vaccinated visible, and celebrating it.
  • Fact sheets and FAQs. These downloadable materials help educate healthcare teams and other staff working in your facilities to help them communicate effectively and accurately.
  • Posters. These can be downloaded, printed and hung in breakrooms and other places to foster discussions and remind people about the importance of vaccinations.
  • Stickers. The CDC has created printable stickers for staff to wear to show they’ve gotten their vaccine.
  • Presentation Slides. There are three prepared slide decks with associated scripts that people can use for educational purposes. They’re titled:
    • “Building Vaccine Confidence in Health Systems and Clinics: Tips for Immunization/Vaccine Coordinators,”
    • “COVID-19 Vaccine Basics: What Healthcare Personnel Need to Know,” and
    • “Building Confidence in COVID-19 Vaccines Among Your Patients: Tips for the Healthcare Team.”
  • Social Media. The toolkit includes sample messages for use on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
  • Video. There is also a CDC video, “How CDC is Making COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations.”

 

Another reason to use a communication toolkit is when a company has third parties that need to communicate on their behalf and they want to arm them with accurate information. For instance, many years ago I worked on a campaign for MasterCard in which we developed a toolkit for banks that were issuing MasterCard credit and debit cards and needed to know how they differed from other payment solutions.

In other instances, a company may want its employees to be able to communicate effectively on a topic. If the organization is large, the company may want to create a toolkit that employees can use in their communications, especially if the organization has a small marketing or communications staff and is looking for its employees to be ambassadors on a particular topic.

Over the years, we have provided a wide range of toolkits to help organizations and their partners and stakeholders communicate more effectively and efficiently. If you’re interested in how we can help you develop these materials or understand how they might be employed to help you educate key audiences, build thought leadership, or simply get the word out about a particular issue or event, please reach out.

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Who Did This? How the Passive Voice Hides a Sentence’s Subject

Passive voice is a sentence construction in the English language that people can use without thinking but is also a tool that writers can use maliciously. Listed among George Orwell’s “swindles and perversions” of writing, it’s important to recognize when you use passive voice and consider if it’s the best choice for your sentence.

 

What Is Passive Voice?

English sentences usually follow a pattern, subject–verb–object, reflected in “Lauren ate the cookies.” Passive voice follows a different pattern, object–verb–subject, resulting in a sentence like “The cookies were eaten by Lauren.” This grammatical construction also allows for the subject, the one doing the action, to be dropped from the author’s sentence completely, becoming “The cookies were eaten.”

In English, the first words of a sentence carry more weight. In a passive construction, this means there’s more emphasis on the object of the sentence and a de-emphasis of the subject doing the action. The difference between the active and the passive sentences is stark, as the passive voice obscures or removes the connection between me, the subject, and my actions, eating the cookies.

One way to identify if a sentence uses passive voice is to look for forms of “to be” followed by a past participle. This can be “was used,” “is given,” “have been chosen,” “being named,” or many other similar combinations.

Please note that not every sentence that contains a form of “have” or “be” is passive; the sentences “Jennifer has a dog,” or “Colleen is an American,” are both active constructions. Additionally, there are grammatically active constructions that avoid using the subject in the sentence. For example, compared to “Lauren burnt the cookies,” “The cookies burned” uses an active voice while evading pointing to who caused this to happen.

 

What Issues Can Passive Voice Cause?

Back in May, the New York Times tweeted about an article they published covering the protests with these three sentences:

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1266935666274906113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1266935666274906113%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.poynter.org%2Fethics-trust%2F2020%2Fnew-york-times-tweet-passive-voice%2F

The internet erupted upon noticing that the protesters’ actions were described with an active voice while the police’s actions were passive. The tweet seems to avoid placing the onus of the journalists’ injuries on the police in the first and third sentences while placing the protesters in an active role in the second sentence.

Upon reading the article linked in the tweet, the sentences seem to be pulled directly from the article. The tweet was likely not intentionally disconnecting police from the violence they caused but highlights the importance of critically considering the use of passive voice.

However, I would recommend you don’t write off all uses of the passive voice as mistakes or unconscious choices. The ability to hide or even remove mention of the subject of a sentence is a powerful tool.

For example, “Management furloughed more women than men,” recognizes management as responsible for their decision. “More women were furloughed than men,” seemingly absolves individuals in management of their accountability, puts the focus on who the action is being done to and, especially in this case, makes the problem seem nebulous and unapproachable.

Active voice offers the subject the agency and responsibility for their actions. It’s often more truthful, better describes cause-and-effect situations and demonstrates a better understanding of the context.

 

When Can I Use Passive Voice?

There are still perfectly good times to use passive voice:

  • When the action is done by an unknown subject (“The toys were donated.”)
  • When the subject cannot or should not be disclosed (“The cookies and milk were consumed.”)
  • When the focus is on the object of the sentence (“The package was delivered.”)

In this blog I used passive voice in a non-problematic way: “… the protesters’ actions were described with an active voice…” I used passive voice because I didn’t know who crafted that tweet and didn’t want to pretend that I did.

 

To improve your writing and your critical media consumption skills, learn to recognize and consider the use of passive voice. Be aware of the issues that passive voice can cause. When you’re writing, ask yourself why you’re using this style and if passive voice is interfering with your sentence’s ability to be clear and truthful. When in doubt, rewrite your sentence so no one must ask, “Who did this?”

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Results From ABC Legal Services: Driving Technology Innovation in the Legal Industry

We’re excited to share results from our work with one of our newest clients, ABC Legal Services. ABC Legal is the nation’s leading provider of process and court filing services and is the official process server to the U.S. Department of Justice. The company also owns Docketly, an appearance counsel provider that has created an efficient, cloud-based platform to connect attorneys and high-volume law firms.

Like many businesses in 2020, ABC Legal had to pivot operations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, the company halted its process serving and partnered with its employees to assemble thousands of protective equipment kits that were distributed to its team nationwide. These kits helped the company resume process serving options safely and provide individuals with the legal services they need.

Prior to COVID, the legal industry has been historically resistant to adopt emerging technologies and change its traditional processes. ABC Legal has helped educate the industry and increase the availability of tools that allow everyone to have “their day in court.” As courts modernize and regulations evolve, ABC Legal continues to advance its technology and business processes to provide faster, easier and more reliable solutions to legal professionals and legal support to those who need it.

Since February, ABC Legal has created nearly 500 new roles to support the resurgence of the economy during the pandemic, and to continue increasing the availability of legal services. This impressive growth is a result of the company’s agility as a cloud-based solution and through its established use of legal technology and proprietary AI. 

We kicked off our engagement with the company in July to begin its public relations program and create a media presence. In the last several months, we’ve focused on executive announcements and proactive media outreach to raise awareness of the company within the legal industry.

 

Below is a snapshot of some of the coverage we’ve secured on behalf of ABC Legal thus far.

 

We’re excited to continue working with the team and help increase awareness of the innovation they are driving to provide more individuals with access to the justice system.

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Fostering Team Spirit and Connecting While Working Remotely

The social and emotional impact is not insignificant.

Our team has been working remotely since March 4. We are fortunate that we all transitioned to working from home without much disruption. Our IT infrastructure was already cloud-based, making the functional aspects of the transition seamless. And we have a highly functional team, made up of individuals who take pride in their work. They have proven their ability to maintain productivity and quality while working from remote locations.

However, as many teams have discovered during the past year, the more challenging aspects of working remotely have been the social and emotional isolation. The inadvertent connections, conversations and sharing of information (personal and professional) that happen naturally in the office, are harder to orchestrate when everyone is dispersed.

Here are a few of the things we’ve done to help navigate these remote pandemic times:

  • Morning Stand-up Meetings: Each morning we connect as a team via MS Teams. Pre-COVID, this was a 15-minute quick-to-the-point meeting. Each person would share his or her projects and deadlines for the day. Sometimes we would use extra time to brainstorm or discuss a particular challenge or campaign. Since working remotely, this meeting has evolved. While we all still talk through our project lists, we have extended the meeting and use the morning call to chat and catch up regarding topics beyond work. Discussion topics range from sharing weekend plans, TV/movie recommendations, current news/events, recipes, gift ideas, hiking suggestions, day-trip ideas, and much more. The meeting has helped fill a need to connect with each other.
  • Happy Hours: At the start of the pandemic there was a wave of Zoom Happy Hours. But after a day filled with Zoom calls, I was not compelled to jump on another video call, even if I had cocktail in hand. Yet I missed those “down time” gatherings with my colleagues. We tried unstructured happy hour Zoom calls with varying success. Then we learned about playing Codenames online. As a competitive, close-knit group, this was a great find. Our happy-hour gatherings took on new energy. We rotate the code spymaster and change up the teams from call to call. We conduct on average one Codenames/Happy Hour per month.
  • Holiday Challenges: We created a Spooktacular Halloween Challenge after learning about a Halloween Bingo game one of our clients created for its team. Lauren created a challenge list of activities. We would send in/share photos as we accomplished the task or activity. Each task had a point value. At the end of the challenge, Lauren tallied up the points. The winners – Megan, Christie and AnnMarie received prizes (e.g., Fran’s Halloween Gift Basket, Glassy Baby, etc.) shipped to their homes – and bragging rights! The shared photos generated lots of discussion and engagement across the team – and helped us all get in the Halloween/Fall spirit. The Holiday-themed Challenge is underway now!

 

Below are a few additional tips for creating social connection and mitigating some of the challenges of remote working:

  1. Be gentle and patient with yourself and others. It is a time of increased anxiety and tension for most of us.
  2. Take time to step away. Give yourself permission to take a walk or get a break. It is particularly challenging to maintain work/life balance when we are all working from home and our work is always present.
  3. As we are not visible to our colleagues, it can be helpful to communicate more often than we might if we were all in the space place.

 

What are some of the ways you are maintaining engagement with your colleagues?

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