Some of our industries smartest practitioners offer their insight and perspective, which could come in handy if you ever find yourself in a crisis communications situation. Which I hope you don't. 

Loads of good insights and resources. 

I wanted to focus on the second point in the article because I think this is one of the biggest challenges we as PR practitioners face when working with clients. It suggests to throw back that curtain once you have committed to an agency relationship and treat the agency - specifically in my case a PR firm - as a partner. MP Mueller hits  the nail on the head, stating:

"We are not the printer repairman; we’re an extension of your marketing team. An agency can help create some remarkable shifts in your business, but not if you keep us at arm’s length. Throw back that curtain and share what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t. Give us access to your team. Let us listen in on your customer calls and evaluate all of your touch points — your reception area, proposals, receipts, signage, ads and Web experience. A good agency wants to be challenged and held accountable for results."

Well said. Truth is, in order to get the most out of your PR agency you need to give them access and treat them as part of your internal team and not as outsiders with the approach that it is a buyer-seller relationship, because it can be so much more than that if you let it. Any successful working relationship starts with clear objectives. Understand exactly where PR fits within your entire marketing effort. Share more than your baseline business and marketing objectives with your prospective PR agency so that it can interconnect their strategy and tactics with your organizations short and long-term communications, marketing and business development activities to deliver maximum value both internally and externally.

It's time to throw back that proverbial curtain and let the PR folks and the Sun in. 

With this in mind, thought this list of useful sites/resources (40 in all) to learn new skills, from DIY projects around the home to technology tips and tools to make your more efficient at work, would come in handy to cultivate both personal and professional development. 

Do these skills have to be particularly marketable, or even useful? There are probably many who would say that you should focus on work oriented skills to maximize the monetary value for your time. I actually see this as antagonistic to the learning oriented mindset. Of course you should learn new work skills, but that's such a basic requirement of being a successfully employed person that I don't think it counts. Plus, focusing all of your learning time on just one area of your life (your job) seems restrictive. A person who cultivates a passion for learning will find all sorts of things to explore, things that break them out of their routine (and make them interesting to talk to at parties).

And, since you never know which skills may come in useful, so why not just have some fun?

And, I think she hits the nail on the head when she says that "there are limits to what you can do on Twitter. For professional services firms like Door Number 3, Twitter is not a tool to drive quick business sales."

She adds, "Even for professional services firms, social media, done well, can be good for awareness. It may not drive quick sales, but if you post articles and research, if you create a persona for your brand that your target audience appreciates and learns from, you will earn credibility — and this can lead to new clients. Eventually."

We've been in this position before, where a CEO of a professional services firm who heard (INSERT NEWEST WIDGET/APP NAME HERE) is going to revolutionize their business and industry and they have to be on it or their competitor is on it, so they need to be on it too, without really looking at how it's going to help them or their business. It's a me too strategy and those never work. 

In cases like this, we think it's so important to thoroughly evaluate your target audiences and your overall business and marketing objectives first and then figure out a strategy that's going to help you reach those objectives followed by a thorough examination of which tools (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, iPhone app, LinkedIn, email, web, media, etc.) and tactics are going to deliver the impact you desire and effectively reach your target audience. Let's remember, as MP states, there are limits to what you can do on Twitter, and if it's not helping your bottom line or reaching your intended target then you should reevaluate your social media strategy and tactics or realize its limitations to drive quick business sales for your business. It's important to remember that, social media takes time and isn't a silver bullet to your business challenges. 

PR recruiter extraordinaire Lindsay Olson also offers some additional perspective on the value of Foursquare to PR and marketing folks like us. 

The fact still remains though, that the content they're creating for their clients must be worthy of sharing. Good content sells itself. If it's not worth sharing, no matter if there's a PR veteran pushing it, it won't resonate with audiences.. 

And, as this question of who "owns" social media, etc. rages on, it speaks volumes for how shallow and self-serving the dialogue has become. Let's be honest here. No one "owns" it. Whoever has the talent, experience, expertise and strategy/ideas, whether it's a person, team, PR or digital agency will be the one who leads the effort. And even then, collaboration is still necessary across disciplines, departments, etc. 

Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer offers a good closing argument in the article on the need for good PR people: "I'd have a hard time believing a digital production shop that builds Web sites would be good at massaging and managing relationships with bloggers."  And, who are we to argue with that.

PR industry veteran Peter Himler shared a post recently by Paul Gillin with the bodacious title Why Online Matters More Than Print.

In it, Mr. Gillin extols the superior buzzmaking virtues of online media versus print (and broadcast), which builds on the theme of his other more provocative blog "Newspaper Death Watch."

In his post, Gillin observes the tangible effects of three different media mentions of his blog (in BuzzMachine, The New Yorker and The Economist). Both BuzzMachine and The Economist mentions appeared online, while The New Yorker ran in the magazine only.

"Prior to the reference in BuzzMachine, the site was getting about 500 unique visitors per day. After Jeff Jarvis linked to one of my year-end roundup articles, that average jumped by about 200 visitors a day. It jumped again after the mention in the Economist... However, a prominent reference in the New Yorker...had no discernible impact. Why? Because The New Yorker reference was the only one that didn’t include a hyperlink. ...In both the BuzzMachine and Economist cases, a surge of inbound links from other bloggers followed the mentions on their websites. This improved my Google search performance and Technorati authority rankings. Subscriptions to my RSS feed shot up by about 5% in each of the days following the links’ appearance."

Now we can debate the qualitative differences of each mention, let alone the intangible prestige of The New Yorker, but Mr. Gillin weighed the publicity's value on quantifiable metrics, e.g., site visitors, Technorati rankings, etc.

Without question media relations is still about garnering good editorial coverage, whether that be online, print or broadcast. What’s changed is that our success may finally be accurately measured by the action the publicity spurs, not by the coverage itself.

Mr. Gillin concludes: "Not long ago, online publishers were frequently called upon to defend the value of a mention on their properties. Public relations professionals told me that Web coverage was nice, but their clients really valued a mention in a prominent print publication. I would submit that this scenario has now been reversed. With companies increasingly using the Web for promotion, lead generation, sales and customer support, a link from a prominent website is of far greater value than a print article in a prominent print or broadcast outlet. And as a younger generation of business and consumer readers gathers more of its information online, that value will only accelerate."

What does this all mean for the PR industry, with its fancy clip books as the client deliverable? It means we should continue to deliver on our promise of using media relations to build brand awareness, drive revenue, increase web traffic, etc. The difference now is we have more ability to measure our success and our clients will soon realize the impact digital media relations has on their bottom line.

 Say What?

 Actually, I’m not that surprised. I’ve been through my fair share of website, micro-site designs and re-designs and know first-hand how more often than not the marketing folks commandeer the content and turn the website into a company brochure. Not to say there weren’t a few marketing execs who understood the importance of the company website as a resource to not only customers and potential customers but to the media as well. It’s the first place they turn to for information about your company, your executives, your products, your services, your news releases, contact information, customer service, etc. why not make it easy to find the information they seek.

 In today’s interactive world, everyone including the media seeks instant gratification. They not only want to know how to reach the right person at your organization, they want to be able to easily download headshots, product shots, bios, relevant videos and news releases without having to go through four of five people before reaching the right one who can help. Furthermore, it will soon be critical for organizations to provide more than just email or phone to get a hold of you in a hurry. Meaning, IM or Twitter will also need to be viable options. If you don’t do this, it may impact whether or not your client gets covered.

According to the report, journalists repeatedly said that poor website usability could reduce or completely eliminate their press coverage of a company. For example, after having a difficult time using a site, one journalist said: "… I would be reluctant to go back to the site. If I had a choice to write about something else, then I would write about something else."

Another journalist described what he'd do if he couldn't find a press contact or the facts he needed for his story: "Better not to write it than to get it wrong. I might avoid the subject altogether."

Us PR professionals aren’t completely off the hook either; we need to make sure our press release headlines are written with journalists in mind so they’re able to quickly grasp the gist by reading only a few words if reading it on the company website or via BusinessWire for example.

One last point, we should also look internally at our own agency websites as well and make sure we’re practicing what we preach.