The Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce placed a full-page advertisement in this week’s Indianapolis Business Journal recognizing Borshoff and other members in the Chamber’s Green Business Initiative.  Borshoff is proud to be in the company of other Indy Chamber green organizations and remains committed to being a green business participant. See the IBJ advertisement on our Facebook Page.

March 4 is National Grammar Day. I feel like it’s a holiday worthy of ticker tape parades, or at the very least, cake. At Borshoff, we pride ourselves on good grammar and clear, concise yet powerful writing.

I’m one of the go-to people at Borshoff for grammar questions. Maybe it’s because I’ve been writing and editing since my high school yearbook and newspaper days. Maybe it’s because I have a freakish steel trap of a mind when it comes to word choices. Regardless, I answer a handful of grammar or word choice questions regularly, from my family, friends and colleagues.

Here are some of the most common questions, and some tips to help you remember them:

• Immigrate/emigrate: When someone leaves a country, they emigrate. When someone arrives in a county, they immigrate.
  • My great-grandparents emigrated from Antigua. My great-grandparents immigrated to the U.S.
  • I remember this by thinking exit=emigrate (the letter “e” starts both words) and into=immigrate (the letter “i” starts both words).
• Affect/effect: Affect is a verb, and it means something is having an impact on something else. Effect is usually a noun, the result of something.
  • The snow has affected my commute. The salt applied by crews has had an effect on the streets.
  • Note: Effect can also be used as a verb, to cause something. The mayor effected change in how the roads were cleared this year.
• I.e./e.g.: I.e. stands for “id est,” which means “that is.” E.g. stands for “exempli gratia,” which means “for example.” (This takes me back to high school Latin class.)
  • Use “i.e.” when you are introducing a complete list of items related to the object you are describing. For example, I love the colors of the American flag, i.e., red, white and blue. There are no other colors in the American flag, so this is a complete list.
  • Use “e.g.” when you are providing just a few examples of things that are part of the object, such as, You should eat five servings of fruit (e.g., bananas, strawberries and apples) every day. You’re not listing every type of fruit in the world, so it is just an example.
  • I remember which one to use by thinking “in essence” for “i.e.” and “example given” for e.g. Always, always, use a comma after these abbreviations.
• Pronoun choice: Every day you’ll hear someone say, incorrectly, Send the report to John and I. But you should say Send the report to John and me because “me” is an object in this sentence.
  • Pronouns can be subjective (the thing doing the action – I threw the ball) or objective (the thing upon which the action is performed – The ball hit me). It gets confusing when more than one person is involved in the action.
  • The way to determine if it’s correct is to “punch the other person out” (Thanks to Martha Barnette of A Way with Words for this example). Take the other person out of the sentence and see if it’s correct.
• Reflexive pronouns: Pronouns that end in “self” are called reflexive – himself, herself, ourselves, myself. It seems that people think they sound more intelligent if they say If you have questions, see Tom or myself. But the correct usage is If you have questions, see Tom or me because “me” is an object in this sentence.
  • A verb only takes a reflexive pronoun if it is something you do to yourself: you dress yourself, talk to yourself, etc.
  • I remember this by thinking about the reflex in your knee – you can make your leg jump by hitting that spot under the patella. You can do that to yourself. (Okay, I don’t know if that’s medically true, but it’s enough of a connection for me to remember the right word to use.)

And, as a little bonus, here are few extra helpful tips:

• Flesh out/flush out: What’s the first thing you think of when you hear “flush”? That’s right – getting rid of waste. So, why would I “flush out” an outline to provide more information? The correct usage is to “flesh out” an outline – that is, putting some meat on its bones. If you are getting rid of something or duck hunting, you can flush it out.
• Abbreviation/acronym: If you can pronounce the shortened version of a phrase, like scuba for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, then it’s an acronym. If you have to say the letters individually, like PBS for Public Broadcasting System, it’s an abbreviation. (An acronym is a type of abbreviation, so technically, you can call an acronym an abbreviation, but you cannot call an abbreviation an acronym.)
• Nauseous/nauseated: Something that makes people queasy is nauseous (That wall color is nauseous.). If you are in the state of feeling queasy, you are nauseated. See now why it’s not a good idea to go around telling people you are nauseous? It’ll be tough to find anyone to eat lunch with you!

Some of the great grammar and writing resources that I use regularly include

• The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves, The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Lynne Truss
• Grammar Girl – great weekly podcasts of short grammar tips, and a searchable database of grammar rights and wrongs. She also uses great examples and mnemonics.
• The AP Style Book – I’ve owned copies of various editions since my days at the IU School of Journalism, and you can also get an online subscription for faster searching.
• National Grammar Day – They have a great list of Top 10 Grammar Tips.
• Copyblogger – A list of 27 commonly misused words and many other writing tips.

What are your grammar pet peeves, problem word choices or favorite grammar resources?

Watching U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn win gold in the downhill, or Apolo Anton Ohno become the most decorated Winter Olympic athlete with three new medals in short track skating, or seeing the incredible performance of Canadian Joannie Rochette win bronze in women’s figure skating only days after her mother died of a heart attack – all of it lifts my spirit.

It’s incredible that we can almost feel the grit and determination of these exceptional athletes – doing things that few can do, and even fewer can imagine doing.

It reminds me how fortunate we are here in Indianapolis to be the beneficiary of sporting events that attract some of the best athletes in the world. Here we can watch these athletes in real time, in real life, and not via the pixels of a big screen TV. You have to give the City and State a 10 for that!

The next chance for Hoosiers and our Big Ten neighbors is the 2010 Big Ten Basketball Tournaments. The women’s event starts this week, March 4-7, and the men’s tournament is March 11-14.

I hope you’ll join the thousands of fans descending upon downtown Indianapolis to enjoy some of the best basketball teams in the country duke it out for a Big Ten trophy.

For tickets, go to the Conseco Fieldhouse box office, or online at www.ticketmaster.com or call (800) 745-3000.

And if you’re not into basketball, as hard as that is to believe in Indiana, do the Big Ten Hoops Day 5K or enjoy some of the other events surrounding Indianapolis’ not-to-be-missed Big Ten celebration. More info is available at www.indianasportscorp.com/events/bigten.

Borshoff struck more than Gold at the ADDYs. We won one of three special Judges’ Awards from the Indianapolis Chapter of the American Advertising Federation (AAF Indy) Saturday evening for our Community Involvement Ad Campaign for client Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL).

As a long-standing pillar of the Indianapolis business community, IPL has supported local organizations for more than 80 years. Although many companies and individuals benefit from the support, there was low awareness of it. IPL wanted to demonstrate the significance of its local involvement to business and political leaders, regulators, its customers and the organizations themselves.

As part of our rebranding initiative, Borshoff developed a campaign celebrating IPL’s community support through six different themes: sports, arts, environment, social outreach, kids’ education and diversity.

Each theme is represented with a bold, contemporary illustration and a tagline that invites the reader to ponder the words and how they relate to that theme, organization or event. The ads, which run in event programs and other collateral materials, inform and inspire others to join IPL in supporting our community.

The ADDY Awards are the advertising industry’s largest and most prestigious competition and recognize and reward creative excellence in the art of advertising. Judges from around the U.S. selected our IPL Community ad series as the best print campaign in the competition.

The local awards are the first of a three-tier, national competition starting with local entrants vying for recognition in the greater Indianapolis market. As a local winner, Borshoff will compete against other winners in one of 14 District competitions. District winners are then forwarded to the third and final tier, the national ADDY Awards competition.

“I could probably push a little more here…”

“I like the connection here…”

“I’m drawn to that…”

“We need to get it a little bigger to communicate…”

“The relationship between the shape and the type is much more balanced here…”

“The greens and blues make me feel good…”

“I love what you did with the Y here…”

“Adding the vertical line – it needed that…”

“I like the thought behind that…”

“It seems a little funky…”

“This is an initial look at where we’re going with the theme…”

“If we could just give a little more color and life to it…”

“I wanted this typeface to have a little more personality on this level…”

“I want to work this a little more — see if I can bring in a little more color…”

“I want to impress as much as we can…”

“I’d like to have other themes in our back pocket…”

“I would feel comfortable presenting these three just the way they are…”

“Beyond that, if you guys want to tweak and finesse, I’m all for it…”

“Perfect. Thanks guys.”

I was elated when I learned that the Indianapolis Cultural Trail will receive a $20.5 million TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant from the federal Department of Transportation. This means the Trail, which will be an eight-and-a-half-mile urban bike and pedestrian path connecting various downtown cultural venues, can now be completed in the next two years.

It is thrilling to know the full dream will become reality, thanks to the government recognizing a project that is truly transforming the city. It’s the Year of the TIGER in Indy!

College students may keep in touch with their friends and family via Facebook and Twitter, but when it comes to networking for jobs, there’s nothing like an old-fashioned meet and greet.

While the theme of my presentation at the University of Indianapolis’ guest lecture series on Tuesday, Feb. 9 was “Careers in PR,” students really wanted to learn about networking. After all, while the 40 or so students were there to learn more about my career, the majority just wanted to know how to land their first job in our down economy.

Ron Dow, assistant director for the university’s Institute for Emerging Careers and the driving force behind the guest lecture series, said he can lecture all day about face-to-face networking, but an 11-year working professional holding out business cards poses an opportunity too good to pass up.

The impressive collection of students listened attentively, and many waited afterward to talk to me. My advice? Ask for help if you need it; every working professional had to land his/her first job. We really will take a few minutes to talk with you. (But also understand that we receive a lot of requests for informational interviews and unfortunately can’t honor every one.)

My networking connections so far from students at UIndy?

• Zero old-fashioned phone calls
• One business card (yes, for a student!)
• Two very well-written e-mails
• One resume

Now I’m just waiting for my new [Twitter] followers and [Facebook] friend requests!

For the longest time, my wife and I were a one-camera family. And that camera was a Nikon SLR – the hefty kind you see on straps around photographers’ necks. It takes beautiful photos, no question, but when you’re parenting an 18-month-old boy whose nickname is Perpetual Motion Man, that big heavy zoom lens becomes kind of a liability.

In search of an on-the-run photography solution, off I went to a favorite electronics retailer. Would I find the perfect pocket-sized picture-taker?

Choices. Man, there were a ton of choices — options, features and megapixels aplenty. I had a budget in mind, which narrowed the options some, but still left at least a half-dozen candidates to consider. How was I going to cut through the clutter? Then I remembered, “Ryan, you’re a modern man. Couldn’t you just pull out your iPhone and have a look at some consumer reviews?”

Could I ever. It was like having unlimited lifelines on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Dozens and dozens of reports, all offering the kind of candid, hands-on help I was after. Being in advertising myself, it was peculiar to admit that I sought the advice of fellow consumers rather than turning to the latest brilliant campaign, but there you have it.

Anyway, my selection was made. My decision, informed. Confidence restored. But then, as I’m standing there in the camera aisle, savoring the taste of victory, I overhear another customer agonizing aloud over which camera he should buy.

“Ryan,” the voice in my head murmurs. “Help this fellow. You could be his lifeline.”

“Hey,” I say, holding the iPhone at the ready. “I can look up some consumer reviews for you if that would help.”

He looks up from his agonizing. “Is this the brand Ashton Kutcher advertises?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“I’ll go with this one then,” he says, plucking the box off the shelf and heading for the registers.

So not everybody has my internal monologue, I guess. Not all of us are compelled to seek counsel from our peers. And for this guy, at least, the best lifeline is someone who’s a millionaire already.

After many Colts-related activities, the Borshoff team ended its fun-filled Colts week with a Blue Friday pitch-in. We gathered in our Colts apparel to enjoy blue food dishes that ranged from blue chicken chili to blue Funfetti cookies. Many of us even sported blue mouths after we devoured the delicious desserts topped with Colts blue icing. “Full” of Colts spirit, our team is ready to cheer the Colts to a victory!

As a graphic designer at an advertising and PR agency, I’m charged with finding creative ways to send information on behalf of our clients. While it’s becoming increasingly rare to send direct mail, it still happens. The problem with direct mail is it’s often as well received as a telemarketing call – except instead of being hung up on it gets thrown away.

And that’s the challenge: make the mailer so interesting that the recipient’s gut reaction isn’t “trash, trash, bill, trash” but something more like “trash, trash, bill, oooooooh.” There’s a lot to consider before getting creative on a mailed piece: Can it be any shape? How small or large can it get? How much postage does this bad boy need?

To help us answer these questions (and to have a little productive fun in the office), we set up an experiment: find objects around the office we didn’t think would make it through the mail, slap some postage on them, and drop them in the mailbox. No envelopes. No containers. No packaging. Au naturel, if you will.

We began with sending a CD. Then, we sent a Kleenex, a business card, a dollar bill, a drum head and finished up our experiment with a fully inflated Jerry French doll from the French Paper Company. I won’t lie; I was very surprised to find almost every item successfully arrived at its destination, especially Jerry.The one item that didn’t make it through, sadly, was a big yellow highlighter.

Frankly, we were surprised that so many items did. Even the Kleenex made it through without any damage. Now it hangs, with the rest of the successfully mailed pieces, on the wall above my desk.

As market researchers, we learned how few limits there are on what can be mailed. With enough postage, it’s just about anything! So kudos to the post office. They even put some items in “we care” plastic bags or envelopes to protect them, and complied with our highlighted request to not deflate Jerry.

At Borshoff, we’re proud of our culture.

It’s based on mutual respect and collaboration. We expect a can-do attitude and hire only those professionals who thrive in a learning environment and are willing to go the extra mile for our clients. We think strategically, then act creatively. We work hard, demand a lot – yet provide flexibility and fun in return.

Over the years we’ve kept track of qualities that lead to success at Borshoff. And by now we have a pretty good list. We share this with our employees. We’ve begun sharing it with serious job candidates.

Not everyone is a match for Borshoff. Other work styles succeed better in other environments. What’s important is that you know the right match for your company.

Here’s our list. What’s yours?

Some people have MBA after their name, others CPA or LEED. For me and my profession, it’s APR. In October 2009, I became one of only 5,000 public relations professionals who hold the APR mark, which stands for Accreditation in Public Relations.

Although Borshoff doesn’t require it, our agency places a high value on professional accreditation and advanced degrees. All four of our principals and several of the account staff have earned Accreditation or an advanced degree (or both). In fact, Borshoff has more accredited professionals than any other agency or company in Indiana.

Plus, I knew it would be a benefit not just to me and my employer, but to my clients as well. The Public Relations Society of America lists these advantages of hiring an APR:

• We are bound by strict ethical guidelines.
• We are senior-level strategists who have demonstrated skills and abilities necessary in today’s public relations executive or manager.
• We have successfully completed a challenging review and examination process.
• We are required to maintain our Accreditation through professional development and education.
• We have committed to enhancing the profession.
• We have demonstrated the desire to succeed.

About the time I wrapped up the APR process, a blog post on Journalistics (which would be on my blogroll if I had one) took up the question of whether you need APR. The writer polled the audience via Twitter, and the majority felt APR was worth the time. Overall, out of 249 responses, 67 percent think the APR is worth it, while only 26 percent don’t.

I’m with the majority. The preparation for APR alone was worth it, as it sharpened my skills and boosted my confidence. But the three letters after my name – priceless!

Deal with problems quickly, using smart communications

A tornado rips off the roof of your distribution center. One of your key employees is arrested for domestic abuse. An angry customer has started a viral campaign to damage your reputation.

What defines a crisis? It’s something that seriously interrupts or shuts down your business or negatively affects your reputation.

Simple or complex, it has the same damaging effect.

Moving quickly and decisively in the first few minutes or hours of a situation can have a significant impact on your ability to minimize the damage. That may involve emergency, fire or police officials. And it most always involves your lawyer. I would argue that an experienced communicator should be part of your core team as early in the process as possible.

Unfortunately, business owners or executives may inadvertently flame the crisis fires by not handling it properly from the start.

For example, if they ignore the crisis, wait until the public finds out or treat the media like the enemy, the situation can become more complicated and problematic in short order. Sometimes, in an effort to explain things, they might use language that no one can understand. Or they may choose to keep the message limited to the issues, ignoring the emotional aspects. These are all very typical responses that can make a difficult situation even tougher.

Conversely, when executives work to keep critical stakeholders informed (don’t forget the employees) and respond to the media, even when they can’t answer every question, the results often can minimize the damage, and in some cases, make things better.

There are never many absolutes, but if executives have been trained to deal with the media and how to use communications tools to reach their audiences with messages and keep them updated, chances are things will be much smoother, even in rocky waters.

More than two decades after its Tylenol-tampering issue, Johnson & Johnson is still the best example of crisis communications done right. It moved quickly and deliberately with actions that boldly communicated its commitment to its customers.

Now, following the accounting scandals that brought down Enron and other major companies, Sarbanes-Oxley requires transparency. Recognizing that you can’t, nor should you, reveal every aspect of your business, take the time to determine what you can say and communicate it proactively. You are always much better off if you’ve been communicating on a regular basis to your constituencies.

Just as you work to get ahead of the curve in your business dealings, your best approach is to prepare yourselves for the crisis – large or small – before it happens. Make sure your operational crisis plan includes a communications plan for internal and external audiences. Develop a fact sheet about your business that can serve as a snapshot when a reporter wants to know about you. Keep your Web site refreshed. Make sure you have sufficient information to reach employees when they are away from work and a system to do that quickly.

Better to have a plan for the crisis and never use it than to add to the problem by not properly communicating. Your choice!

*Please note, this article was published in the Winter 2009 – 2010 issue of Catalyst, a publication by the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce.

Oscar. Felix.
Quasimodo. Esmeralda.
Constraint. Creativity.

At first glance, these couples seem downright, um, odd. But get to know them better and you realize they don’t just go together, they’re inseparable. Enmeshed, even.

We creative folks get a stigma as being black-clad, lofty-phrase-spouting, don’t-fence-me-in types. Deservedly so, in some cases. But not always. Definitely not at the beginning of a project. I’ve found that as a campaign, branding effort, multimedia installation, painting, or whatever is getting underway, we need those constraints. So go ahead, fence me in a little. In fact, let’s build that fence together.

Our posts and planks: budget, demographics, motivators, geography, tone, competition, mood, atmosphere, to name a few. Those things don’t confine our ideas; they give us something to push off of. It’s within those necessary boundaries that creative peeps can brainstorm, play, use past experiences, relate the seemingly unrelated, craft, and tell a story — creatively.

Besides, no matter how small the box is drawn, there are always a million things you can do inside it. And finding them… well, isn’t that the fun part?

A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of stumbling upon a Web ad for Adobe® Acrobat® 9 Pro, which advertised easy-to-manage, dynamic presentations…all delivered in a PDF.

I was skeptical. Could there really be an EASY fix to years spent fighting PowerPoint — or hours spent building dynamic presentations in Flash? (If you’ve ever imported video into PowerPoint, only to find it won’t play during your big presentation, you can feel my pain!)

Well, after trying the new version of Acrobat Pro, I’m happy to confirm that it really IS all it’s cracked up to be. And here are a few reasons you might be tempted to try it…

1. You can embed video and audio files. No need to LINK to a video or audio file, which will likely break by the time you get to the final presentation. You can EMBED the video and audio, which will import with pretty playback controls and a fairly small file size. What if you go from Mac to PC, or vice versa? No problem. Anyone with Adobe Reader 9 can enjoy it, and anyone without will be prompted to download the latest version for free.

2. PDFs now support FLASH! Adobe built Acrobat 9 with an embedded Flash Player, so Flash video, Flash animations — Flash anything — will import flawlessly. And play flawlessly to engage your viewers. Oh, the possibilities!

3. Capture dynamic Web pages in a PDF. Adobe really outdid itself with this one. Just enter the URL of your choice and voilà! Watch an entire Web page play inside your PDF. Whether you’re presenting your next site design, or just want to reference a page on the Web, you’ll have quite a tool at your hands. For your testing pleasure, I’ve saved this very Web page as a PDF. Don’t forget to try the links!

4. Toggle into full screen presentation mode. You can even add page transitions, if you please. Just another reason to consider Acrobat for your next presentation.

5. Create PDF portfolios. No need to send e-mails with 12 attachments anymore. Simply select as many documents as you need — images, e-mails, spreadsheets, videos, you name it — and combine them into one unified PDF, custom color scheme and all. Recipients can even flip through the files like iTunes albums. This can make for a compelling proposal or presentation… or just clean up all of your clunky e-mails.

If you’re as excited as I was to learn more, download Adobe’s PDF portfolio for more details.  (And for the best viewing experience, I highly recommend upgrading to the free version of Adobe Reader 9 first.)