Jim Parham, PR Chronicle

While some PR practitioners may suggest what we do borders on miraculous or mysterious, I offer a more pragmatic viewpoint.

Let’s look at Newton’s third law of motion for answers.

Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I don’t know about you, but I believe it.

Take the current health care debate, for example. The administration proposes one thing: “We need a government option so that all may be insured.” Bam!
Someone else proposes the opposite: “No, what we need is more affordable care, and insurance reform.”

Someone postulates the answer in Afghanistan is troop withdrawal. Then, someone else proposes a surge.

In PR we see Newton’s law work just like your model rocket experiment in senior science class. Just take any old politician: “I did not take money from the lobbyist in question.”
Public reaction: “Oh, yes you did.”

And one of my favorite takes on the laws of thermodynamics stipulates that when you create order in one place, it creates disorder somewhere else.

In PR, this is known as creating a distraction to draw attention away from our client tactic.

Instead of dealing with a catastrophe head-on, a PR ploy is to distract from the central issue. Thus, creating disorder in one place allows you to create order somewhere else.

Don’t you just love these science scenarios? So, the next time someone suggests that you get out the PR crystal ball and call upon the “ghosts of campaigns past” for your solutions, suggest it may be better to head over to the lab and break out the slide rule.

They still make slide rules, don’t they?

One of the toughest things to do well in public relations is to write a relevant, compelling and concise news release.

Why—because much of what we’re asked to write about is not news, or, is old news at best. Worse yet, it may have no news value locally.

News releases are the bane of many reporters: They get them, scan them and toss them. And, it’s not their fault. Generally, news releases are written in passive pabulum and don’t follow several important guidelines.

Instead of me extolling the virtues of how to get a news release used, I will take some sage advice from Bob Zaltsberg, long-time editor at a wonderful local daily in southern Indiana, The Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.).

Bob states, “When considering what you’d like to see published, consider these factors: News is something that will be of interest to others. Ask yourself these questions about the event or issue you want us to cover: Why should people care? Would you care if you weren’t involved? Why is it important that people know this information?”

Furthermore, when it comes to “pitching” a story to a reporter, it’s important to consider where the most compelling story may be found. Bob illustrates this point in the following:

“The point is, the fact that your group or organization is sponsoring something or hosting something or organizing something is not as newsworthy as the issue your group is trying to address or the people you are trying to help. “Group X holds bake sale” is not as newsworthy as “Bake sale benefits Boys and Girls Club.” And that’s not as newsworthy as suggesting a story on any significant issue young people who frequent the Boys and Girls Club are facing that could use the attention of the community.”

This is great advice. Thanks Bob.

Quickly, here are a few tips to consider:

1. Is what you are announcing really news? Is there another way to get the message out on less-than-newsworthy items?
2. Write in the active voice and in current time. Most of the releases I see use troubling passive-voice phrases such as, “has announced,” or “was appointed.”
3. Put the most important information up front. Seems simple, but we find many wayward releases with buried leads.
4. Use AP style to be consistent and conform to industry standards.
5. Keep it short and pithy. No one needs more long-winded diatribes consuming their inbox.
6. Write real quotes that sound like someone talking. “I am deeply excited about the awe-inspiring dedication of a large contingency of citizens finding a way to congregate around a cause…” C’mon. No one actually talks like that, unless it’s William F. Buckley.

Another young man strapped with explosives has flown the friendly skies and reminded us that the war on terrorism is still being fought on our own soil.

There is a public relations aspect to terrorism. Literally, extremists want to impact public perceptions and influence decision-making on a grand scale.

Think about the public relations implications of the newest attempt at terror. Why would someone pick Christmas Day? Well, it’s pretty obvious. Christmas is a Christian celebration associated with feelings of world peace and a sense of serenity. His goal was simple: Shatter the calm, introduce doubt and fear, and show the irony of the moment.

Some experts may say the act was done on a day that would have less scrutiny, lax security and unsuspecting citizens.

However, there’s a more troubling, deeper implication behind this pyrotechnical display at 30,000 feet. Terrorists are staying a few steps ahead of us with their diabolical decisions.

First, the day was chosen by the would-be warrior because we have a set of values based upon Western thinking. On Christmas, we are snuggled soundly in our beds with thoughts of sugarplums dancing in our heads. No one would really attack us on Christmas Day, would they? That seems dark and cheap — exactly.

Second, our security experts have long suggested that terrorists want to blow up planes over the ocean to hide evidence. But, they neglect to take into account one key point. The current soldier-of-terror is not concerned with being coy or sly. In fact, the exact opposite is true. In this instance, the goal was to cause as much damage as possible by blowing up a plane over a metropolitan area, on American soil, during one of the major Christian holidays.

Why didn’t our experts think of that? They may want to take a few crash courses in public relations this year.

Making predictions is a dangerous business. What is certain about 2010 is uncertainty. However, since we know that history repeats itself, we can call upon the past to help foretell the future in the world of public relations.

Let’s hit some predictions “out of the ballpark.” Here is my list of PR predictions for 2010:

1. A sports legend or current icon will fall victim to his/her own “bad” behavior and have to pledge goodness and sainthood in the future.
2. A politician will admit infidelity and put his wife on the podium with him during the apology speech.
3. On Wall Street, someone will get an undeserved bonus.
4. The White House press secretary will have to “clarify” the vice president’s remarks.
5. A Hollywood star will be “caught on tape” with someone who is not his/her spouse at a trendy nightclub or sunny beach.
6. A governor will announce that his/her state is broke and will have to do “more with less.”
7. A sports star will receive a salary twice the size of the national debt, and will later test positive for illegal substances.
8. The president will have a teleprompter mishap while saying “unprecedented” or “change.”
9. A late night television host will have to apologize for something he’s said.
10. A spokesman will appear on the national nightly news and suggest their company’s double-digit profit is not unreasonable, nor undeserved.

Go ahead. Try it yourself. I’m sure you’ll be right!

Tiger’s public relations street cred is sinking faster than one of his fairway drives, and public relations pundits are punishingly critical of his spin doctoring to date.

This is a man who has enough money to bail out Dubai, yet he’s left standing at the precipice of a perception verses reality canyon. At this time, there is little that money or a spinmeister can do to help his cause.

Perceptions are like cancer cells. They are difficult to control, hard to kill and once established tough to change into a more benign form.

Here are several mistakes Tiger has made to date:

1. Waiting too long to say anything, thereby allowing the perception train to pull out of the station.
2. Being reactive to building questions surrounding his late-night costly cruise.
3. Seeming to hide behind his gated community’s walls like a wanted man, or at the very least, a very rich man who doesn’t want to talk to the police.
4. Allowing the tabloids to form a cast of public perception around unsubstantiated and potentially troubling claims of “other” women.
5. Holding off for days to issue a sincere apology and begin “damage control” with his family, friends and those important sponsors.

A sad fact is that this type of behavior by sports legends is all too common. Had Tiger’s team of consultants and image masters revisited recent sports history they would’ve found several examples of sports stars and their public relations disasters. Serena Williams, Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, Kobe Bryant…the list goes on.

Unfortunately, Tiger is playing way below “par” on the perception management front.

The apparent need for an individual’s personal connectivity and contact with others is moving at Mach 2 speed and continues to set a blistering pace.

Today’s plethora of products designed to “keep you in touch with the world” has exploded and digital device makers are throwing a battery of new toys at us this holiday season.

I’ve decided to invent a new term for those requiring immediate and continual digital dialogue in all situations, time zones and fashions: dosers. A doser is a person who must get their daily, hourly or minute-by-minute fix of digital communication or he or she will blow a circuit board.

Ho, Ho, Ho. Off to the electronics superstore we go.

Apple iPhones and literally hundreds of other communication tools are enticing consumers to go from 3G to 4, 5, or mega-G. These endless and enticing offerings are more regular than an Ex-Lax user.

What is the impact of this endless connectivity to friends, family and fun? I can suggest a few things and in the spirit of predicting new trends in the coming year, here’s a list of possible results:

1. Super saturation will cause the diminution of the quality of the communication.
Sample Text:
Texter One (T1): “Hey.”
Texter Two (T2): “Yea?”
T1: “What’s hap-nin?”
T2: “L. Not Much.”
T1: “OK.”
T2: “U?”
T1: “Nuthin.”

2. Overload and Overdose will lead to a retreat for some back to basic communication tools:
“You didn’t respond to my e-mail?”
“Well, I turned off the ‘system’ at 1 a.m., got some sleep and didn’t look at my e-mail until Monday morning.”

3. Increasingly, law enforcement agencies will begin to enforce new laws aimed at distracted drivers. We’ll begin to see more drivers doing “pull-offs” to highway safety lanes and shoulders to avoid getting a ticket, thereby allowing them to communicate comfortably.

Halloween can be a scary time of year, and I’m not just referring to the ghouls and goblins preparing to roam my neighborhood in search of sweets.

PR executives at national retailer Target got quite a fright a few weeks ago after an offensive costume appeared on the company’s Web site. Alongside the pointed witches hats and vampire fangs appeared an “illegal alien” costume, consisting of an extraterrestrial mask, orange jump suit and official green card.

Being a professor on a college campus that is known for its parties, I’ve seen my share of slightly offensive, but amusing costumes. But usually these are creative, homemade creations, not something you can grab off of a rack for $29.99.

Target officials pulled the costume after receiving complaints from the Latino community and quickly issued an apology, stating that the costume was never intended to be sold at Target or via the Web site. Regardless, they learned a tough lesson: sometimes the scariest Halloween costume doesn’t involve blood and gore.

This week, Elinor Ostrom, a distinguished Indiana University professor, won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. She works for the same university that I do. But, that’s where the similarities stop. I still haven’t won the distinction of chief bottle washer, so I won’t even try to suggest we are on equal footing.

But, the two of us may have similar thoughts about communication. Dr. Ostrom’s body of work has shown that large-scale engineering solutions may look better on the surface, but it is the lack of communication in these endeavors that may spell trouble.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in its support of her award, suggested that, despite flawless engineering in building dams for irrigation in Nepal, many projects ended in failure. The reason? Building dams cut out local communities and eliminated communication among various factions.

This seems to have some applicability to my recent ramblings about the dangers of e-mail. Technology is a wonderful thing, but relying on digital pathways as the primary way to communicate to staff, friends and business associates is full of danger.

It may be advantageous to engage in face-to-face dialogue and discrete and clear communiqués via videoconference or telephone. These are the tried-and-true pathways to successful interplay. E-mail is a wonderful and efficient tool. However, it quickly loses out when attempting to ascertain the motivations, feelings or intent of the missive.

So, pick up the phone, ask for a sit down or get out of your seat and visit the client. There are untold benefits to doing some things the old-fashioned way.

College students using the miracle of modern technology to reach out to professors and potential employers may be doing more harm than good. E-mailing and texting are efficient and convenient, but drawbacks include potential misinterpretation of the message or a negative reaction from the recipient.

Somewhere in the e-revolution, we found that short-form messages, delivered electronically, are an adequate replacement for face-to-face interaction.

E-mail wars, endless strings of communiqué and unrepentant language can make a bad situation worse. When you write a professor about missing today’s class, it’s probably not a priority on her/his to-do list. It’s even worse to ramble on with long-winded excuses and pabulum.

Many employers have switched to electronic applications on their Web sites for both job applicants and internships. Unfortunately, this company-centric process eliminates the human interaction, thereby negating any interpersonal skill strength a candidate may possess.

Here’s my partial list of “Do’s” and “Don’ts”

Do
1. Write e-mails and text with the same care and specificity of a hard-copy document.
2. Use full sentences and proper grammar.
3. Construct your e-mail as you would any written correspondence, with a beginning, middle and end.
4. Determine if an e-mail or text is a proper way to communicate with another party.
5. Understand that colleges and universities retain most student e-mails in their databases, keeping a record of your informal banter.

Don’t
1. Take the easy route on an internship or job hunt by simply “applying online.” Press hard and find a warm body willing to talk.
2. Use popular online abbreviations and electronic shorthand. The recipient may have no idea what you mean.
3. Use e-mail or text for important, delicate or questionable communication. It’s much better not to have a written history of these discussions.
4. Don’t use electronic correspondence to wage war or bicker. In the heat of the battle, it’s much too easy to “fire off an e-mail.”
5. Rely on e-mail as your sole source of social and business interaction. Human interaction and telephone calls can help you gauge another person’s demeanor and viewpoint much more accurately.