Last week, the Indiana Governor’s Council for People with Disabilities held their annual convention – a gathering of more than 400 advocates and individuals with disabilities around the state focusing on “Celebrating Community.”  For me, the conference was more than the incredible keynotes by Glen Hiemstra, Aaron Bishop and Ceasar MacDowell. It went beyond the engaging workshops focused on building an inclusive, livable community.

I was captivated by the stenographer.

During each presentation, the stenographer diligently captured the spoken words and projected them onto a large screen for anyone to read. This observation took me back to COMM 101 – the transportation of a message between the sender and the receiver.  Throughout the conference, I observed so many different methods of message delivery:

• Sign language interpreters
• Braille note-taking
• Low-vision aids
• Hearing aids
• Closed-captioning

It made me think: How do I ensure that the messages I send – videos, logos, presentations, blogs, etc. – are accessible and communicable to everyone? Do our tweets, PowerPoints and YouTube spoofs take into consideration the stenographer’s ability to recount the words or an interpreter’s capability of expressing the sentiment?

Thanks to the stenographer, I will be mindful of creating accessible communications. Please let me know in the comments below any tips you have for ensuring accessible messages.

Once a year, Lacy Leadership Association offers a course called Leadership Education and Development (LEAD), and this year I had the opportunity to attend. The class meets for six weeks on Fridays and includes other supervisors, managers and business owners who are interested in becoming more effective leaders. LEAD was an amazing experience for many reasons.

The first reason would be the facilitator, Len Mozzi. Len’s background combines 20 years of experience as a theater professional with an expertise in creativity to provide a unique perspective to the business world. Theater? I admit – I was struggling to see the connection. I didn’t want to pretend to be a better leader; I wanted to be the better leader. Len was beyond valuable in helping the group to be better presenters, to run interesting productive meetings, to tackle problems and to determine what it really means to have vision.

The second reason would be the fabulous people with whom I got to meet and interact. Of course, part of the experience is networking, yet I didn’t feel like anyone was trying to sell me anything. I met interesting people of all ages from a variety of backgrounds and businesses. We all had to get out of our comfort zones together and that is a fabulous bonding experience. Listening to others outside of your own industry offers new perspectives and an appreciation for individuality.

The third reason is that “our patterns can become a prison.”[i] The more we do things, the more rote they become, so much so, that often we aren’t sure why we take the steps we take – we just do. Taking a new approach or a different route can be difficult for some people. Yet, the gain outweighs the pain and gets the dormant parts of our minds active again.

Some of us are born leaders, others do their time and work their way into a leadership role while some may end up there by default. Regardless of the reason, as leaders or employees, the opportunity to step out of your day-to-day and examine your skills is probably not something we take the time to do on a regular basis. By going through LEAD, it has reawakened my desire to do things differently, to see things with new lenses, and to stretch beyond my comfort zone. If you get the chance to take LEAD, don’t let your patterns pass it by.

The University of Notre Dame recently partnered with Borshoff to develop the UpRight! campaign, which promotes aerial lift safety awareness for universities, colleges and high schools. The integrated campaign included the development of several key pieces, including a central website that offers a video introduction to aerial lift safety considerations, as well as video segments and tips on four key areas of lift safety: the Right Setup, Right Training, Right Weather Information and Right Safety Contact.

The website also features a downloadable fact sheet and posters, including one that encourages schools to input their official adopted wind limit, to post in areas where aerial lifts will be used. The UpRight! campaign launched on August 26.

Check out some of the campaign elements:

Central website

Right Weather Information video segment

Downloadable materials

Dan Gillmor, an editor at The Guardian, argues that the ghostwritten op-ed is “an unacceptable deception.” I beg to differ.

If you follow two simple rules, there is no deception.

• The ideas must be the ideas of the person whose byline appears.
• The person whose byline appears must review and approve – completely own – the content of the op-ed.

That said, sometimes the actual writing is best left to professional writers. When? When the bylined author does not have time to craft a clear, persuasive piece. Or, when writing is not the opinion leader’s strength.

To me, it’s that simple.

As early as seventh grade, I knew I would work in communications. I’d spend time in middle and high school working as a writer or editor on the yearbook, newspaper and radio staffs, and I gladly gave up portions of my summer to learn as much as I could. Often that meant attending summer immersion programs on college campuses or in rare cases, working side-by-side with a professional who shared my enthusiasm for writing.

So when the Indianapolis Association of Black Journalists (IABJ) asked Borshoff to participate in a recent multimedia workshop by providing an “internship” for two high school seniors – and leaders here said yes – I was excited.

It’s common for Borshoff to hire college students as interns. These students usually are upperclassmen or recent college grads. Opening the doors to high school students in this way is a new endeavor.

But what’s not new is the value we place on learning. And what better way to prepare the next generation of communicators than to provide opportunities for them to be immersed in the real world of work, where they can build knowledge.

The two days our “interns” spent with us, we made sure they attended meetings, conducted research, participated in brainstorming sessions and got a taste of what it’s like to write on tight deadlines.

I don’t know whether Ridley Morgan, an aspiring music producer/journalist who attends Cathedral High School, or Carmel High School’s Jordan “JJ” Newton who wants to be a sports agent or TV sports broadcaster, will ever work in PR.

What I do know is that they have additional information about this field to help guide their decisions down the road.

I’m grateful for the time I had during my youth to learn from working professionals, and I’m glad to work for a company that believes in paying it forward.

If you ask many journalists what PR people do, they might tell you PR folks write news releases, pitch story ideas and go home promptly at 5 p.m. That’s their assessment in a nutshell. They’re completely oblivious to all of the research, strategic planning and long hours involved. I know this because I used to be a news producer. For 11 years, I crafted the day’s headlines into newscasts that viewers (hopefully) wanted to watch.

Then one day, I realized it was time for a change. I decided to pursue a career in public relations. I enrolled in grad school, much to the surprise of some co-workers who balked “you don’t have to go to school to do that.”

And maybe I didn’t. After all, I watched many journalists make the transition without ever stepping foot into a classroom. That’s fine for them, and I wish them success. I also acknowledge both professions require similar skillsets, but I’m thankful my personal journey led me back to school. Otherwise, I’d never know what goes into a SWOT analysis or the basics of a communications plan. Without school, I wouldn’t have learned how to write a standby statement, research a content analysis, and assemble a comprehensive public relations plan.

These are skills I learned in the classroom, not the newsroom. And these are skills I use daily as a PR professional, helping clients communicate through a wide variety of channels – not just TV news.

Is the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) on your radar? Until earlier this month, it wasn’t on mine. How could I have missed the think tank commonly called “snicker?”  After all, one of the founding fellows is social media guru Shel Holtz. I learned about SNCR at the PRSA Digital Impact Conference in New York City, where several of its fellows presented on the latest in digital trends and award-winning case studies.

The global nonprofit research and education foundation and think tank was founded in 2005 to focus on the advanced study of the latest developments in new media and communications and their effect on traditional media and business models, communications, culture and society. SNCR is comprised of professional communicators, members of the media, business leaders, scholars, futurists and technologists – all focused on research, education and the establishment of standards and best practices.

Its website, www.sncr.org, hosts a robust assortment of resources, including surveys, case studies, white papers on best practices in social media, and more.

Media is constantly evolving, so it’s good to know there is a group dedicated to keeping up with and assessing new trends.

Our annual Borshoff retreat was last week at Bradford Woods in Martinsville. And for all the useful team-building activities and state-of-the-agency presentations, there was an even more vivid and useful lesson: How not to do outdoor advertising.

You see, the trip to Martinsville takes you south on Indiana Highway 67, a route peppered with plenty of small outdoor boards. Unfortunately, most of what’s on them is small, too. Mile after mile, our employees were confronted with tiny headlines, microscopic graphics and miniscule logos (yes, I’m actually saying someone should make the logo bigger).

So why does this happen? Why do we see so many campaigns with standout broadcast executions, eye-catching print, and forgettable outdoor?

Well, it’s simple. Most outdoor boards are created with the designer or art director sitting two feet from their computer screen. At that distance, one of two things happen. Either correctly sized outdoor type looks way too big or type that seems correct on the screen will be too small in execution. And judging by our journey into southern Indiana, the second occurrence frequently wins out.

So how do we avoid this trap at Borshoff? Well, again, two things happen. First, we learn to live with type and graphics that feel uncomfortably large on the computer screen. And, second, we use a simple outdoor viewer, a framing device allowing you to see outdoor designs just as they’ll look through the consumer’s windshield. The result? The kind of impactful outdoor advertising that’s few and far between on Highway 67.

I recently returned from the annual IPREX meeting in Washington, D.C., where I enjoyed the collegiality of our partners from around the world and picked up plenty of good information along the way. IPREX is an international network of independent public relations and communications agencies, so meetings always offer great discussions about creative ideas on how to run our companies.

During the D.C. meeting, we also heard from several presenters ranging from a Reuters deputy bureau chief to a social media pro to a political columnist. Below are some interesting data points and insights.

David All, chief creative officer, David All Group:

“Never let an intern run Twitter.” You want to put a senior person on it: one who understands the strategy, can deliver the right messages and will watch grammar.

George  Vrandenburg, chairman, Alzheimer’s Action PAC; William Rebeck, Ph.D., professor of neuroscience, Georgetown University; Michael Hodin, Ph.D., executive director, The Global Coalition on Aging:

Alzheimer’s disease is bigger than HIV/AIDS. We don’t need to find a cure for it; we need to delay its onset. Half of the 85+ population has Alzheimer’s . This has huge economic and quality of life implications as our population ages.

Kristin Roberts, Washington news editor and deputy bureau chief, Reuters:

Journalists are nasty, cranky and don’t want to talk to you. Reporters spend their time trying to build relationships [to get sources]; you [PR people] should do that too.

On Reuters: If we’re not exclusive, we have to be distinctive.  This means being smarter, doing critical analysis, being more sophisticated.

The Honorable Joao Vale de Almeida, European Union ambassador to the United States:

Common values are the real foundation of the relationship between the European Union and the United States. The economy drives the relationship.

Ron Brownstein, editorial director and columnist, National Journal Group:

Today 80 percent of seniors in the United States are white, while 47 percent of Americans under 18 are non-white. They are the two fastest growing groups, and this has significant implications for our society.

Here’s a non-news flash: At 600,000,000 users and growing, Facebook offers marketers the potential to reach large amounts of consumers.

It’s the “how” of reaching audiences that spurs countless discussions, debates and arguments.

Help has arrived, however, from Facebook itself. With the creation of Facebook Studio, advertising agencies and marketing professionals can get a glimpse of how brands big and small are using the world’s leading social media site to sell their wares.

Facebook Studio features a Gallery section highlighting creative campaigns and their performance; a Spotlight area for the newest work; an Awards page dedicated to recognizing the most creative usages of the site; a What’s New blog; and the Learning Lab, a Facebook marketing primer.

Upon early review, the site seems like a useful (and overdue) resource. While predictably showing international brands like BMW and Coke, we also see how smaller concerns like OurJewishCommunity.org and the Boston Public Health Commission have used Facebook to effectively communicate to their core audiences.

It’s still up to agencies and businesses to decide the appropriate approach for their social media strategy. But Facebook Studio offers a helpful starting point.

“Information overload” is the subject of a recent article in The Telegraph, a UK newspaper.  The article discusses the findings of a USC research team that set forth to amass all forms of media stored and sent in the world – from movies and books to e-mails and text messages.

The study concluded that in 1986 the average person received roughly 40 newspapers’ worth of information each day; in 2007, this figure leapt to 174.

For those of us who are active participants in the digital age of smartphones and social media, “overload” may be an understatement. How do our minds process it all? Reading with purpose and filtering information for significance becomes critical.

Reading with purpose is particularly relevant for one aspect of client service in which I engage on a daily basis: media monitoring.  We scan print, online, TV and radio media for content with relevance to our client’s products, brand and industry. On any given day, our team receives hundreds of articles via search engines that seek out specific key words.

Searching for key words is a good place to start, but I’ve learned that developing your own filters is important in preventing information overload. Here is what I look for when reading for work or pleasure:

• Reliable source – Do I trust the outlet/ author to provide factual information?
• Relevance – When the content hits home I’m more likely to be engaged in reading and sharing the information.
• Powerful statistics – Study data, sales numbers, rankings and the like can pack quite a punch.
• Striking visuals – Images with impact, informational charts/tables, videos and great design tell stories on their own.
• Creative phrasing – Inventive language catches the ear the same way striking images catch the eye. For example, during the recent Midwest winter storm, my Twitter feed featured a multitude of creative synonyms for “winter storm.” My favorites: “Winter Wallop” (from INside Indiana Business) and “Snowmageddon” (from ChicagoNow.com).
• Out of the blue – A fresh perspective can spark interesting conversation.

I’m interested in hearing your insights – How do you process all 174 newspapers’ worth of information?

As I reflect on my 26 years in the communications business (14 of those at Borshoff!), I realize how far I’ve come in my views on teamwork and collaboration. Early on, it was all about “me” and finding ways to shine and advance my career. Proving myself was a smart strategy, or so I thought. Yes, I have good ideas, good instincts and can hold my own in a client meeting. But in the past decade, I’ve learned that partnering offers the best results. It sounds cliché, but it’s so true.

At Borshoff, we have a balanced mix of left-brain and right-brain thinkers. And, we believe this offers the most comprehensive solutions and ideas for our clients. When presented with a project, we bring together an integrated team to develop a sound strategy, coupled with concrete creative.

Last week, my coworker of 13 years, Jennifer Berry, creative director/VP, and I gave a presentation to a marketing class at the IU Kelley School of Business. We presented our “creative” process, which to most people, probably seems pretty boring. As we stepped through the slides and case studies, I couldn’t help but think about the importance – and benefits – of offering different perspectives and well thought out strategies.

After the session, several students came up to thank us. One commented, “You can tell you two have worked together a long time. If I closed my eyes, I couldn’t tell which one of you was speaking; it was almost as if you were one person!” Jenn and I have joked about this for years, but it was fascinating for young students to make the same observation.

So as I do “my” job today, working with various account and creative teams at the agency to negotiate, problem solve and share ideas, I’m reminded that there’s strength in numbers. It’s maybe not always the easiest route as we work through differing (strong) opinions and conflicting recommendations, but in the end, when the two halves of the brain come together, that’s where the magic happens.

Mark Suster, an expert I follow on Twitter, recently posted a blog about how startups can best use PR firms, which got my attention because I’m passionate about both PR and startup companies. Most of his advice was spot on, especially from the entrepreneur’s perspective. Relationships are the hinge on which all things work. Not only is it necessary to develop relationships with journalists whom you hope will cover your new venture, but also develop relationships with the person promoting your company on your behalf, whether that person is in-house or an extension of your team.

Along with building relationships with the media comes preparation for interacting with them:

• Do you understand their beat? Do they typically cover startups, or do they prefer a more established business, something that has been tried and tested?
• Are you ready for them to investigate your company? Is your website current? Do you look like you’re operating on a shoestring, or have you put some thought behind your website, making it easy for journalists to do their job?
• And once the media is ready to talk about you, have you done the necessary preparation so your executives are on message and can answer tough questions?

While Mark Suster leans toward in-house PR help, he recommends going with a small local firm if outside help is needed. Our agency has found our size to be our strength. We’re small enough to be flexible and responsive to our client’s needs, yet large enough to have a deep bench of talent from which to pull creative ideas and solutions.

2010 marked my first year as a full-time professional at Borshoff. I learned something new every day, developed my communications and business skills, and discovered personal and professional strengths—as well as areas of improvement.

With a year under my belt and 2011 upon us, I know exactly what my 5 PR resolutions are for the new year:

1. Meet my professional network. As an active Twitter user, I wish I could put names and faces together more frequently. On occasion, like at Hoosier PRSA luncheons or social media breakfasts, I see someone’s nametag and put two and two together. The relationship grows once you have both online and face-to-face interactions. This year, I plan to be more intentional about meeting my growing professional network in person and further developing these important relationships.
2. Speak up. Although I’m a young professional among many accomplished veterans, I plan to be more proactive in sharing my thoughts, concerns and ideas. It’s important for my colleagues and clients to know I’m thinking proactively and outside the box. And who knows? Perhaps my idea may be one that others have never considered.
3. Get involved. Borshoff is big on community involvement, and it’s important to me too. Whether I decide to join a not-for-profit board or committee, volunteer or attend events, I want to be active in my community.
4. Become an expert.  It’s vital to be excellent at a lot of things in our field: writing, proofreading, project and time management, and problem solving. In 2011, I resolve to dig into something I know little about or don’t know how to do. I might just master the flip cam or learn a software program that I can teach my coworkers.
5. Find balance. As many full-time employees have already discovered, often the workday goes well beyond 5 p.m. While it’s essential to keep promises and maintain responsibilities, it’s also important to do something for me outside of work — whether it’s exercising, trying a new Starbucks drink or taking a 20-minute power nap (outside of office hours, of course). When you take care of yourself, you’ll be better able to serve  your clients.

If I accomplish these 5 resolutions, I know that 2011 will be just as great as 2010. Now you know my goals for the new year, what are yours?

Each year, many organizations release the “hot” new color or colors for the upcoming year. These colors are determined by current economic and social trends. Following their release, the color trends trickle down into the various design industries including; fashion, paint, textile and, of course, advertising. This year’s “hot” color, from Pantone, breathes new life into our color palettes with a hue that is both familiar and surprising. “Honeysuckle” (reddish-pink) is uplifting, confident and strong.

As a communications firm, Borshoff must stay on top of color trends. Color has a major impact on our work, and staying current on which colors are most attractive to consumers is vital. A great design can be rendered ineffective if the color selection is wrong. When choosing a color palette, I consider both the audience and the emotions I want to evoke. Honeysuckle is a color that may not be for everyone – but I look forward to incorporating into my work this year.