Recently, I attended a PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) professional development program that featured a panel of well-known D.C. area assignment editors. The editors ranged from broadcast news, to radio and even the good old Washington Post.
Initially, I did not expect much from the panel, other than comments like “never call me” or “do [...]

Can you imagine functioning in your role as a communicator without email? Impossible. We have become fully dependent upon the tool. Sure, we may complain about the number of emails we receive, but at the same time, we can easily rhyme off the advantages of having email in our lives. For example:
Simple communication with a [...]

A few years have passed since I had a go at faddish words that have already worn out their welcome. As we’re communicators, speaking in understandable language is the thing. But using clichés and hackneyed expressions and words may seem like an effective use of language, but, in truth, it grates on the ear. Using [...]

At a recent social media event, I was able to connect with several new colleagues over appetizers. At one point, I looked up from my plate of finger foods to find three out of five people furiously jabbing at their mobile devices between bites. The other two nervously glanced from the table to their briefcases [...]

As communications professionals, we are well aware of Awareness Months / Weeks / Days. This rings especially true if you work in health care. Considerable planning is done around these occasions and ultimately our campaigns depend on being seen during these times. Ironically, communications professionals are constantly fighting for awareness of their awareness. So imagine [...]

Did this title grab your attention? Put a fire in your belly? Does it make you want to scroll down to the comments section (immediately below this post) and vehemently voice your displeasure? You could call me names – maybe even ones that start with the letter ‘s’ – or write comments like: “Lorna, the [...]

Many people talk and write about the importance of networking. In fact, our very own Katie Halloran wrote a nice article entitled “The Power of Networking” last September. I shared the same trepidation as Katie described when I first started going to various business meetings to learn about evolving technology, and of course, to meet [...]

As public relations professionals, we like to consider ourselves masters of language. Communication is our bread and butter and the written word is often our choice method of connecting with an audience. From news releases, to speeches, to blog posts, storytelling is among our greatest strengths. But what about story-showing?
I recently watched an interesting TED [...]

I have recently watched with more than casual interest the public relations controversies swirling around News Corporation and, most recently, the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I have former colleagues, now friends, in the top communications jobs at both organizations and have been astonished to hear how similarly the situations evolved. Both scenarios were not dissimilar [...]

In all the noise and commotion of the recent Susan G. Komen debacle, it was not difficult to point out what Komen did wrong.
Within the scandal, something was done so very, very right, that it went almost unnoticed. What Planned Parenthood did, and did not do, in communicating with media and followers of the [...]