Name: BurrellesLuce Insider
Bio: BurrellesLuce invites knowledgeable employees with valuable information and perspectives to share their thoughts on topics relevant to our industry.
Posts by BurrellesLuce Insider:
- Strengthen relationships
- Increase effectiveness
- Develop employee performance
- Reduce stress
- Improve moral
- Save time, energy, and expense
- Compete: high assertiveness and no cooperativeness with the goal being to win.
- Collaborate: high assertiveness and high cooperativeness with the goal being to find a win-win for everyone.
- Compromising: moderate assertiveness and moderate cooperativeness with the goal being to find a middle ground.
- Accommodating: low assertiveness and high cooperativeness with the goal being to yield.
- Avoiding: low assertiveness and low cooperativeness with the goal being to delay.
- Tommy Crudup, senior talent executive, Rachael Ray
- Rebecca Jarvis, co-host, CBS This Morning: Saturday
- Haleigh Raff, senior editorial producer, Piers Morgan Tonight (CNN)
- Vanessa Weber, consumer/investigative producer, ABC News
- Log into Facebook.
- Click on your name in the upper right corner of the blue Facebook toolbar.
- On your timeline, click on the gray “Update Info” button located to the right of your profile picture and bolded name.
- The Contact Info box displays all the screen names, websites, and email addresses Facebook has listed for you.
- Click on the pencil/edit icon.
- In the Email section, you will have the option to add/remove emails and to change the display and privacy settings for each email listed.
- To the right of each email address there are two icons. The first icon (from the left) lists the settings for who can view the particular email address. Click on the down arrow to select which lists and users can view the email address.
- The second icon gives settings for whether the email address is hidden on your timeline. The default on most addresses is “Hidden from Timeline.” But the Facebook assigned email address is defaulted to “Shown on Timeline.”
- After the desired changes have been made, click Save.
Taking Control of Your Career: 7 Tips From ‘Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office’ Applicable to All Genders
February 19th, 2013by Deborah Gilbert-Rogers*
As the New Year progresses, I find myself drawn to reading a number of professional coaching, personal finance, marketing and sales books. Being a bit of a book junkie and wanting to reduce clutter, I now download samples to the Kindle app on my smart phone before purchasing a physical copy. (This is one millennial who won’t give up her physical books.)
One sample captured my attention recently, Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers, to such the extent that I purchased and downloaded a digital copy of the book right then and there! Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, part of Dr. Lois P. Frankel’s Nice Girls series, examines the unconscious messages women are taught in girlhood – which may or may not be helpful – that are then continued in womanhood and how these behaviors and messages influence a woman’s ability to progress in her career (as well as other areas of her life).
For Frankel the emphasis is on the word “girl” not on “nice.” Dr. Frankel is the first to point out these learned behaviors are not exclusive to women and that men experience their own set of messages in boyhood that affect them in manhood. However, our culture has an insidious way of encouraging woman to continue girlhood messages and behaviors in ways that differ from men.
Here are some of the “mistakes” I think relate to most business and PR professionals, regardless of gender, and tips for taking charge of your career.
1. Not Understanding the Needs of Your Constituents: Whether it’s our client, CEO, stakeholder, customer or target audience – we all have people that we serve. It is imperative to know what they need and want. Otherwise we risk missing an opportunity by not providing value. “The trap many women fall into is thinking they know what’s best for their constituents and therefore not asking the right questions on the front end,” writes Frankel. One way Frankel suggests to overcome this behavior is to “be more concerned with doing the right thing than doing things right.” In other words, don’t be afraid to shift perspectives as new data emerge and as change is warranted.
2. Skipping Meetings: Attending meetings is just as much about personal branding and marketing as it is about the content explains Frankel. She suggests, “Using meetings as an opportunity to showcase a particular skill or piece of knowledge (provided it’s not note taking or coffee making.)” Additionally, “Ask to be invited to a meeting where you’ll have the chance to meet senior management or make a presentation about something for which you need support.”
3. Ignoring the Importance of Network Relationships: Years ago people believed that showing-up for work and doing a good job would be enough to protect their careers, explains Frankel. Unfortunately many still buy into this belief today and have been taught that building relationships at work wastes time and distracts from the job at hand. Frankel suggests actively participating in a professional association and developing relationships before they are needed. If you wait until you need the relationship, it is too late.
4. Making Up Negative Stories: As PR and communications professionals we understand the importance of storytelling and the power it has to influence audience perception and behavior. However, as women we have a habit of creating negative stories and assuming we’ve done something wrong in order to explain a mistake or why something didn’t go as planned, addresses Frankel. In the workplace, this negatively affects our ability to take positive risks and trust our intuition. Frank suggestions beginning to “replace negative stories with neutral ones” and to look at “alternative scenarios that could explain what has happened that have nothing to do with you doing something wrong.”
5. Failing to Define Your Brand: Just like corporate branding and marketing, personal branding involves defining the value you bring to the table and how you stand apart from the competition. Frankel advises coming up with three to five things you enjoy most about your position as a way to start defining your personal brand. The reason? “We tend to be good at what we like,” notes Frankel. Then relate these strengths to your position and what you bring to it. Having these statements in place will help set you apart from the competition, whether that is within the organization or externally when delivering a proposal to a client or prospect.
6. The Inability to Speak the Language of Your Business: While there are times when it is best to avoid jargon, you must still be able to use the language of the entire business. “Influence comes from knowing the business, and one of the best ways you can exercise your influence is to use language unique to your industry and profession,” writes Frankel. Beyond your area of expertise and department, familiarize yourself with the ROI, bottom line, and other performance indicators of your corporation or client. BurrellesLuce offers a great newsletter on Finance for Communicators which is available in our free resource center.
7. Using Gestures Inconsistent with Your Message: Presentation is everything. Your “gestures should be integrated with your energy,” remarks Frankel. Don’t be afraid to take up space – a behavior that runs counter to what many women have been taught. Frankel suggests “allowing gestures to flow naturally from your spoken message” and to “match your gestures to the size of your audience.”
What professional books have you read lately that you’ve found helpful? Share your recommendations here on BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.
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Bio: After graduating from Rider University, where she received a B.A. in English-writing and minor degrees in Gender Studies and French, Deborah joined the BurrellesLuce Marketing team in 2007. As a marketing specialist she continues to help develop the company’s thought leadership and social media efforts, including the copywriting and editing of day-to-day marketing initiatives and management of the BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas blog. Facebook: BurrellesLuce Twitter: @BurrellesLuce LinkedIn: dgrogers
Acts of Balance Webinar: The Conflict Diet – 5 Ways to Reduce Unwanted Conflict From Your Life (Part 2)
November 14th, 2012by Deborah Gilbert-Rogers*
In a previous blog post, I introduced you to some of the concepts I learned from a webinar with communications and leadership expert Alan Cohen. Alan has worked with BurrellesLuce on a number of complimentary webinars, including “Those Difficult Talks for PR Pros – Finding Your MoJo in Delicate Discussionssm.” (Available free on-demand on the BurrellesLuce Website.)
In his latest, through his Acts of Balance Coaching practice, he tackled “The Conflict Diet: 5 Ways to Reduce Unwanted Conflict From Your Life.”
During the webinar Alan gave the audience three different scenarios with options on how each of the modes might address each of the situations. I was surprised to learn that all of my “gut responses” landed in the “collaborating” category, while my second choice was typically to “accommodate,” or simply “avoid” the situation all together.
Just after the webinar I found myself in the middle of a conflict that had been building for some time, but that I had been avoiding - in part because I wasn’t sure a conflict even existed and also to please the other parties and keep the peace just in case one did. Armed with new knowledge from Alan’s webinar, I decided to simply observe my interactions during said conflict. After some honest reflection, I began to see a cycle emerge.
Initially, I choose to “avoid” the subject, only to later be thrown a curve where I was forced to address the conflict. Quickly I moved in to “compete” mode after not having my own needs addressed for some time. Then I found myself reverting back to the natural tendency to “collaborate” because I could clearly see both sides of the conflict and wanted everyone’s needs to be addressed. As the issue grew more tiresome I downgraded to “compromise,” only to lose resolve and “accommodate.” While a resolution was eventually reached, I still have some lingering doubts – even weeks later – and find myself mulling over the issue and not completed satisfied with the outcome. Was I really always that accommodating and, as Alan describes, a people-pleaser?
Soon I began to reflect on other conflicts where the outcome had left me feeling less than satisfied. I found that the tendency to collaborate only to eventually yield (accommodate) happened more often than not, usually when I received push back to the point where the conflict grew tiresome and it was more likely to happen when communication was impersonal (e.g, via phone, text, email, etc). In fact, in the most recent conflict, I came to realize that accommodating actually had given way to compliancy (and had for some time) to the extent that it was beginning to affect other areas of my life. What an eye opener!
D.I.E.T.S
So what is a savvy, self-aware professional to do? Alan suggests D.I.E.T.S to help eliminate conflict and see more of the resolutions you want.
1. Detect your feelings. If our peace is disturbed, or we find ourselves obsessing – these feelings signal that there is something wrong and we need to stop and examine what it is. Alan reminds us that thoughts create our feelings. Our feelings create our actions and results. By identifying feelings we can identify the thoughts that are driving them and make changes.
2. Identify the feelings of others. Emotionally Intelligent people understand their own emotions and better understand where other people are coming from. Though we can’t read minds, we can tap into our intuition – our gut feelings – and read the body language of the people with whom we are in conflict.
3. Evaluate the situation. What are the facts of the situation? What are other interpretations of the situation? Once we evaluate we need to decide how to proceed based on the situation, the value we place on the relationship, and where we see things going in the future.
4. Try a course of action. Each mode of conflict resolution has its own set of skills. However, there are core skills common to all, including active listening, clarifying, and validation.
5. Study the outcome and commit to improve. Once we’ve entered and done our best to resolve the conflict, look at what worked and didn’t work and examine what we want to do to guarantee future success.
How are you managing conflict? What other tips can you suggest to Fresh Ideas readers?
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Bio: After graduating from Rider University, where she received a B.A. in English-writing and minor degrees in Gender Studies and French, Deborah joined the BurrellesLuce Marketing team in 2007. As a marketing specialist she continues to help develop the company’s thought leadership and social media efforts, including the copywriting and editing of day-to-day marketing initiatives and management of the BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas blog. Facebook: BurrellesLuce Twitter: @BurrellesLuce LinkedIn: dgrogers
Acts of Balance Webinar: The Conflict Diet – 5 Ways to Reduce Unwanted Conflict From Your Life (Part 1)
November 7th, 2012by Deborah Gilbert-Rogers*
Over the years BurrellesLuce has had the pleasure of working with communications and leadership expert Alan Cohen on a number of complimentary webinars, including “Those Difficult Talks for PR Pros – Finding Your MoJo in Delicate Discussionssm.” (Available free on-demand on the BurrellesLuce Website.)
Recently Alan offered a free webinar, “The Conflict Diet: 5 Ways to Reduce Unwanted Conflict From Your Life,” through his Acts of Balance Coaching practice.
Alan defines conflict as “a condition where peoples’ concerns (the things they care about) seem to be incompatible.” Conflict itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He confirms, “Organizations that embrace conflict and dialogue – ones that don’t hesitate to disagree in the spirit of finding truth and making the best decisions – are successful, build trust, and keep people engaged.”
Benefits of Re-framing Conflicts without Personal Attacks
When there are disagreements initially, even unfiltered conflict can equal genuine buy-in if there is attention to results and the conflict is handled responsibly, says Alan. Engaging in conflicts without personal attacks offers a number of benefits:
“When not aired, conflict has a sneaky way of doing harm. It can stand in the background working its magic in cunning ways as a destructive energy,” states Alan.
As a “recovering people-pleaser,” Alan admits that he spent most of his life trying to avoid conflict, something that has done more harm than good and often squandered his energy. It was refreshing to hear him admit this, as I too am a recovering people-pleaser. Though, I didn’t realize to just what extent until after listening to his webinar and observing my interaction with others in times of conflict.
Modes of Conflict Resolution
While we use all of these modes, the ones we tend to gravitate towards by default are often those that we are most comfortable with and with which we have the greatest skills and that seems to fit the situation at hand, explains Alan. Generally they fall into five categories, each with a different level of assertiveness and cooperativeness.
One mode isn’t better or worse than the others. However, people have a tendency to be their own worst enemies. Often they underuse a mode of resolution due to a lack of experience or comfort, over use a preferred way of conflict resolution, are only interested in satisfying their own concerns, are overly interested in satisfying others, don’t fully understand the pros and cons of one mode compared to another, or don’t have enough skills to minimize pushback.
In my next blog post I will share some of the personal insights I gained from Alan’s webinar, as well as highlight some of his tips for resolving conflict and removing unwanted conflict from your life.
In the meantime, what do you think of the categories offered by Alan? What other benefits can be derived from conflict that don’t include personal attacks? Please share your thoughts here on Fresh Ideas.
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Bio: After graduating from Rider University, where she received a B.A. in English-writing and minor degrees in Gender Studies and French, Deborah joined the BurrellesLuce Marketing team in 2007. As a marketing specialist she continues to help develop the company’s thought leadership and social media efforts, including the copywriting and editing of day-to-day marketing initiatives and management of the BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas blog. Facebook: BurrellesLuce Twitter: @BurrellesLuce LinkedIn: dgrogers
Meet the Media: National Exposure – Landing Broadcast Media Coverage (Tips for Pitching)
October 23rd, 2012Alfred Cox*
Placement on national broadcast television, including morning and entertainment programs, has always been the Holy Grail for marketing and public relations professionals. This is just as true today, even with the advent of digital technology and the changing media landscape. (Download the BurrellesLuce Infograph: The State of Broadcast Media.)
PRSA-NY organized a panel of experts who gave a peek into their shows and tips for how PR professionals can get their clients featured.
The event, hosted by Anchin, Block & Anchin, featured:
10 Tips for Pitching Broadcast
1. Do your homework. All of the panelists commented that “knowing what the show was about” and “knowing the show’s audience” are a must when pitching. Raff commented, “Build a relationship. Watch the show, understand the connection of the show for your client, and follow shows with common interest.”
2. Be relevant and timely. Topics need to be specific to the audience of the broadcast show you are pitching and timely. All the panelists agreed that “Breaking News” takes priority. Weber remarked that “same day pitching depends on the story, but is done quite often, especially with consumer stories.” Jarvis cautioned PR pros to “check the weekend news shows, including those from other networks” prior to pitching as she “won’t run the same story as the other weekend news shows.
3. Know what you are pitching. “Always advise if it’s a paid spokesperson,” remarked Weber, and “don’t hold back vital information.”
4. Know who you are pitching. Weber said that if PR pros use a “bad name” or the “wrong show” they won’t receive a return call.
5. Pitch journalists using their preferred contact method. For Jarvis, Twitter is the best way to pitch her – even better than emailing, in fact.
6. Keep pitches short. Crudup said pitches should include a brief paragraph and the email subject line should always be the topic. Weber agreed that “short and sweet” was the way to go. Raff cautioned to “plug the brand just once or twice via email,” while Jarvis only wants a “one or two sentence paragraph” for the pitch.
7. Provide a compelling story. For the next two months the panelists are booking political conversations, pre- and post-election stories, and political interest stories. Raff commented that because of the elections, “celebrities and their options on the political arena” made for a compelling story. “Touching stories that affect all lives,” is another good topic. However, Jarvis advised PR professionals to “hold human interest stories until after the election.”
8. Consider your spokespeople. When looking for guests, “crazy guests are good for ratings,” said Crudup, while Raff noted that “strong guests and/or erratic guests make the rating.” She also said that when pitching a human interest story, “the guest must be able to tell a story live.”
9. Include video content with your pitch. All the panelists agreed that video content was important for both supplemental material as well as demonstrating the spokesperson’s ability on camera and relevancy of topic. Raff informed PR pros to “send an appearance from another similar show.” Crudup instructed, “Include a video from another show that is similar to Rachel Ray, not just an interview, but an actual TV interview,” so that he can see interaction with interviewer and interviewee. Weber also confirmed that sending a video “from other TV appearances helps make the decision on booking.”
10. Understand that broadcast takes priority over digital. For Weber, “digital will always follow after the show” because “real-time TV is still the best trend.”
The key to successfully pitching broadcast media is about, as Jarvis remarked, “knowing where the opportunities exist and offering the key ingredients.”
What other tips would you add for pitching broadcast media? Please share your thoughts with BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas readers.
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Bio: Alfred Cox is a rare commodity of a performer who combines a relentless drive to succeed with the ability to provide “first-person” touch to his clients, creating loyalty and repeat business. He has a hard-nosed work ethic in a results- driven environment and he is often called the “Network King.” Alfred has been in the PR industry for the past 18+ years and joined the BurrellesLuce team in 2011. Connect with him on Twitter: @shantikcox Facebook: BurrellesLuce LinkedIn: Alfred Cox
Default Email Address for Facebook Users Changed to @Facebook.com Address and How to Change It Back
June 27th, 2012by Deborah Gilbert-Rogers*
Given its track record for transparency, it’s no wonder many Facebook users don’t trust the site on privacy issues. Still some Facebook users are in shock that the social media giant recently issued yet another change without first notifying its members.
As reported by the Asheville Citizen-Times, “The latest kerfuffle is over Facebook’s decision to replace the personal email addresses on a user’s profile page with an @facebook.com email address. It coincided with a decision Monday by Facebook to halt testing – at least temporarily – of a feature called Find Friends Nearby, a location service that identifies other Facebook users in the vicinity.”
It’s unclear if Facebook intentionally left the part about users’ private email addresses being hidden out of the notification that told users they would be given a Facebook branded email address. Regardless, if you’re one of the nearly 900 million users opted in without consent, you’ll probably want to change your email display settings back.
Since Timelines have replaced profiles, changing your settings to display the email address of your choice and hiding the Facebook-assigned email can be a bit tricky. Here’s how to make the changes. (Note: There are a number of ways to do this, but this is how we did it.)
Step-by-Step for Removing/Displaying Email Contact Information on Facebook
What do you think of Facebook’s latest changes? Please leave a comment here on BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas and let us know.
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Bio: After graduating from Rider University, where she received a B.A. in English-writing and minor degrees in Gender Studies and French, Deborah joined the BurrellesLuce Marketing team in 2007. As a marketing specialist she continues to help develop the company’s thought leadership and social media efforts, including the copywriting and editing of day-to-day marketing initiatives and management of the BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas blog. Facebook: BurrellesLuce Twitter: @BurrellesLuce LinkedIn: dgrogers
