Going Freelance Next Month!

The title for this post is pretty self-explanatory, but it's perhaps worth giving some context. After nearly two years at Edmonton International Airport, I'm finally doing what I've talked about doing (mostly to myself) for years but never felt quite ready to do. I'm starting my own shop under the banner of Freeland Creative Communications, and while the website and whatnot are not yet up, the work is starting to pile up - and I'm now openly soliciting clients.

What services am I offering exactly? Here's a brief overview:

• Web/Print Copywriting
• Blogging
• Communications Audits & Content Planning
• Media Relations
• Social Media Planning & Communications
• Event Communications
• Strategic Communications Planning
• Copy Editing & Proofreading
• Translation Services
• Communications Research

Why now, you may be asking? A number of reasons really. After the third - or maybe the fourth - phone call from colleagues past and present asking if I was available to do freelance work of various types and having to say no, I started asking myself if my "one more year" refrain was perhaps misguided. And it's not just me. All of my independent communications contractor colleagues, at least here in red-hot Alberta, are up to their eyeballs with work at the moment, with some eager to offload some of it to people like, well, me.

Over the past decade I've had the privilege of doing communications work for a wide range of industries, including tourism and aviation, construction and infrastructure, legal education and social services, education, financial services, science and technology, and arts and culture. At Edmonton Airports I've had the pleasure of being part of one of the Edmonton region's most creative communications teams, and have helped EIA develop the highest per-passenger social media following of any Canadian airport - while generating a number of local admirers along the way. This Citytv Breakfast Television clip from last week certainly made my day.

 

It's been a fun ride with EIA, but I've reached a point in my professional development where I feel I have the most to offer as a freelancer rather than a member of a specific company or organization. That may well change, but for now I'm delighted and excited (and, yes, more than a little nervous) to be going out on my own. The website should be up in a few weeks. More info to come!

How much social media is too much?

Source: reconnections.net

Last week I posted a Facebook status in which I confessed to having a "social media problem." Which is a bit of an exaggeration, but not wholly untrue. I do have interests other than social media, including some which I consciously engage in on my own without any digital engagement with the outside world. Nevertheless, both my professional and social lives float on a sea of digital communication, and as anyone who reads this blog is doubtless aware, I have a deep abiding interest in social media and its influence on culture, human communication and psychology, as well as a knee-jerk desire to be 'ahead of the curve' with the stuff. In other words, I'm capable of dispensing with it but it seems I have to work at it.

Those of you familiar with my blog and what I do for a living might be surprised to find out I was not an early adopter of social media. I didn't even join Facebook until 2010, having resisted the dreaded F-word for many years. For the longest time I dismissed social media as communication for people too lazy to write an email or pick up the phone, as well as a sordid incubator for bad writing. I finally broke down, and in a sort of online Damascene conversion I took up social media with a vengeance. Today I'm subscribed to no less than nine social media platforms, and (to varying degrees) manage four Twitter accounts and three Facebook pages. In all, 14 accounts.

When I say I'm subscribed to nine different platforms, that's not to say I use them all on a regular basis. In fact some I simply signed up with to test-drive them, including for my post last week on new social media trends to watch for. But even at that it's a hell of a lot of digital media. (Come to think of it I should probably unsubscribe to some of this stuff, as it's still my name floating out there in cyberspace.) And much of the time I find that when I open my laptop and click on the browser, I instinctively go straight for Twitter or Facebook rather than something interesting to read, and thanks to the smartphone, it's easy to get into the habit of obsessively tapping on those SM apps. They're just so....there!

So how much social media is too much? There's really no straightforward answer to this. Evidently if you're regularly up until 4:30 in the morning arguing on Facebook over an obscure grammar point or 1980s film quotes, or regularly spending six consecutive hours on Twitter in any context other than post-tsunami crisis communications, you might have a social media problem. Most of us don't take it to such extremes, but at the same time it's worth taking the following realities to heart:

1) Unless you're on the clock, you don't have to be on social media.

A love of social media coupled with a gung-ho disposition and a lack of time management is a surefire recipe for burnout. Social media monitoring, especially for a major company or organization, is really a 24-7 job, which means that no single human being could ever possibly be expected to do it single-handedly. If your organization doesn't have the money or the inclination to hire more than one person to do the job, that's not your problem. And if your day job is social media coordinator, it's all the more important that your day include down time from the stuff.

2) It's OK to quit a tool that isn't working for you.

All too many SM nuts seem to take the mountaineer's adage "Because it's there" to heart when it comes to social media. But unlike Everest and Annapurna, social media is a capricious, constantly shifting landscape with only a nebulous concept of 'there'. When it comes to Pheed, Path or whatever other Flayvr of the month, by all means visit Base Camp but if the climb is proving more arduous than beneficial, nobody cares if you head back to Kathmandu.

3) Being an 'early adopter' isn't itself an accomplishment.

Many of us (myself included) have succumbed to the (imagined) pressure to be an early adopter of social media. And while there's nothing wrong with the desire to be ahead of the curve with digital innovations, not all such innovations are worth taking on board with full aplomb. In fact some are downright bad. Again, see Point #2 about it being OK to just visit and then say, "Meh, not for me."

4) It's OK to be an expert.

In his book The Cult of the Amateur, author and tech entrepreneur Andrew Keen upbraids Web 2.0 for undermining the authority of learned experts and the work of professionals by creating a culture of dilettantism. While I have my disagreements with his assertions, it is true that our current obsession with being on trend with every single online innovation is anathema to developing expertise. In a recent social media conference I attended, one SM 'guru' urged his audience to experiment, asserting "There's no shame in being a rookie." I agree, but I also believe there's a tremendous amount to be gained from being an expert at something, and this requires some focus.

5) It's OK to take a break from social media and blogging.

In February of this year I reached the end of my tether. I quit blogging for a couple of months and reduced my non-work-related social media output. And I'm glad I did. I'm now back at it, but without putting pressure on myself to produce X number of blog posts every month and whatnot. If for no other reason, social media without content to communicate is a complete waste of time (yours and other people's), and we all have a finite amount of content to disseminate before we need to step back and go into recharge mode, be that reading, making music or walking through the woods deep in thought. In the end you're only competing with yourself, so the best result you can ever expect is a draw.

6) Let your elves do their share of the work.

About a year ago I wrote a post on 'digital media rules as told by children's fables'. In this I referenced the tale of the poor shoemaker and the elves as an example of taking successful advantage of your networks, thereby relieving your own social media monitoring burden. If you've invested enough time building up your SM presence, it's hardly going to collapse in ruin if you take a week-long (or even a month-long) sabbatical. And if a question in left unanswered on a thread on your timeline, if you've got enough people you routinely engage with, someone else will fill in the blanks if you decide to call it a night.

On that note, I'm taking the rest of today off.

6 Reasons Why Everybody Thinks They're A Writer

Writers are an oft-depressed lot. Not only do they tend to spend a lot of time in isolation staring at a screen (and getting little physical activity), but they also have to contend with a world that by and large considers 'writing talent' to be about as rare and prized as right-handedness or an extensive knowledge of Internet porn. Writing, we are told, is not like, say, proficiency in graphic design, cardiology or jazz piano. In other words, it's something that given a high school education we can all do reasonably well.

As a professional writer and editor who has worked as a wordsmith of one sort or another for nearly a decade,I have always resented the notion that writing is somehow less skill-bound than other creative domains. While it is rarely spelled out to me so matter-of-factly as "Oh, anybody can write!" and indeed the praises of 'good writers' are often extolled, when it comes down to meeting production deadlines and cranking out copy, I have more than occasionally found my services bypassed on the pretext that "Well, we needed it done so we got Bob to do it, and you seemed busy. And Bob can do it just fine."

The problem with this rationale, of course, is that often Bob can't do it 'just fine'. Not that Bob is an idiot, or even a bad writer per se, but after eight years of wordcrafting and word-nerdery I am exactly the person you want to get those critical messages fine-tuned and positioned in exactly the right spots in the text, while ensuring that there are no awkward sentences, misplaced commas or references to 'pubic service'. (Trust me - I've seen it happen more than once.) Moreover, as a staff 'writer', it's my job to do this sort of thing, and the fact that I am appearing busy is not a reason to bypass me. After eight years as a professional writer, I work fast - and can get assignments done very quickly.

This is not to say that I'm the king of the written word, nor that I don't make mistakes. I've made more than my fair share in my writing career. I've committed egregious typos and acts of grammatical terrorism that have made it to print and still make me cringe today. (I won't give you specific examples because I hope to continue getting work with the publications in question, who I think haven't noticed yet.) I do go back and correct my blog posts, sometimes on numerous occasions. And even beyond this, I frequently think of better ways I could have phrased something after it's too late. (When it's too late? After it's too late sounds redundant doesn't it?) But I continue to get better with every year I spend doing this. As it is with brain surgery or plumbing, the more mistakes I make, the better I get at avoiding them.

But to return to the original topic, it is true that 'good' writing is often seen as something of a extra - not a frivolity exactly but a bonus that, while desirable, isn't of life-or-death importance. Which, to be fair, I suppose it is. After all, having a burst water main or a listeria outbreak at your airport is significantly worse than having a misplaced semicolon or a dangling modifier on the airport's web copy on shopping and dining offerings. And even if you're sticking to the creative professions, hideous graphic design on a pamphlet is invariably worse than convoluted syntax within the copy, as the graphic design in question will likely prevent readers from picking it up in the first place.

Nevertheless, poorly constructed writing will derail your communications, make your social media communication less effective and generally make your brand less good. And while I'm not saying that writing 'talent' is the exclusive purview of a certain noble breed of elected ones, it is the purview of people who have spent many years playing with words, sweating over syntax and generally fretting over crap that most people rarely think about. Us word people are not normal. Take one of us to a rock concert and our first reaction to the exultation "Rock on!" is to ask "On what?" Yep, we're freaks, but we're the freaks who keep your web and brochure content from going south,

Still, though, everybody on one level or another thinks they're a writer. Here is my personal theory on why that is.

1) We all do it in one form or another.

We write every day. We write grocery lists. We write angry letters to our neighbours for blasting Lynyrd Skynyrd out the window at 11:00 pm on a Tuesday. We help our children with their writing homework. And some of us write obnoxious blog posts purporting to explain why everybody thinks they're a writer. Not everybody fixes their car transmission on their own or designs a book cover. But everyone with a baseline level of literacy writes - and all the more so in the era of social media.

2) It's not generally taught on an extracurricular basis.

Writing isn't seen in the same light as, say, playing the violin or slam-dunking a basketball. And one important reason for this, I believe, is that with the exception of certain really nerdy kids, hardly anybody studies writing as an extracurricular activity - it's seen much more as a core subject that everybody learns. And the kids in writing clubs are probably mostly there to escape bullies; the writing is just a pretext.

3) Bad writing is often less immediately apparent than, say, bad music or bad drawing.

When a singer is hideously off-key or mangling the lyrics to the national anthem or something to that effect, it's generally quite apparent, as is egregiously bad visual design. Bad writing doesn't generally have the same effect. I suspect the reason for this is that at first glance writing on a page simply looks like writing on a page, and any badness therein does not become immediately apparent until you really, really read it. Which brings me to my fourth point, which is....

4) Most people don't really do that much reading.

Now before you protest, let me ask you this question. When was the last time you picked up a travel brochure at a tourist infocentre or on the brochure rack on a ferryboat and actually read the thing from start to finish - or even the lion's share of it? Unless we're actually sitting down to read a novel, most of us (and I don't necessarily exclude myself from this) are terribly lazy when it comes to actually reading and digesting the vast amount of content out there. This, I believe, leads to a devaluing - on some level - of the skills of the people who produce such content. But the fact of the matter is that without good copywriters, the key messages in boldface that you do actually pay attention to won't pop up, much to the detriment of the company in question.

5) Schools reinforce bad writing habits.

 PR Daily ran a great article recently on how schools inculcate really terrible writing habits among pupils. Such habits include shooting for length rather than conciseness, adherence to arcane grammatical rules like not starting sentences with the word 'and' (something I do all the time), and an unhealthy fixation on the introduction-thesis statement-body-conclusion structure. While these quirks in writing education don't necessarily undermine professional writers' respect out in the world, it does contribute to a general overconfidence in regards to writing know-how. "Oh, I know what the rules are." No, you probably don't.

6) Nowadays, everybody truly can be a writer - with a readership.

Thanks to Blogspost and other free blogging programs, anybody can start a blog. And many, many people do - including many who really shouldn't. No....I don't really mean that. In fact I think everybody should blog, because blogging on a regular basis is a great way to build up your writing chops and become the writer you know in your heart you could be. Because anyone can be a good writer. You just have to start out as a mediocre one and plod ahead.

7 Tips For Writing Destination Articles On Places You've Never Visited

I used to do a lot of travel writing. When I lived in Tokyo, I had an assortment of semi-regular clients for whom I would write 'destination pieces' pertaining to Japan. While I don't get many of these at present (Edmonton isn't quite the blue-chip destination that Tokyo is), I do get the occasional one from old clients. This week I was approached by the editor of SilverKris, Singapore Airlines' in-flight magazine, about an article on Toronto. I, of course, don't live in Toronto and actually haven't really spent that much time there, but given my prior relationship with the magazine, my passing familiarity with Canada's 'Centre of the Universe' and the fact that I have numerous friends and colleagues there, I took the job on.

While I am somewhat familiar with Toronto, having visited the city several times, there have been instances - and this is my dirty little secret as a writer - where I've written articles on places I've never actually been to. Is this dishonest? I don't really think so. After all, I've never misrepresented my own travel experience to get a gig and in cases like this I've been upfront that I a) haven't been to the location the editor wants the scoop on, and b) won't be able to unless they pay me a enough that I am able to take the time off work, go to said location, write about it and still make money on the whole deal. That hasn't happened yet. Perhaps I'm writing for the wrong people.

While there are no doubt editors out there who would choke on my commentary here (and I'm hoping I don't lose clients by writing this), my stance is that there is nothing wrong with writing travel pieces on destinations that you personally have never visited as long as you're honest about it and you really do your research. Having said that, you do have to be careful, and there have certainly been cases in the past where I've decided that I was in no way qualified to write a particular destination piece and have turned the offer down. When it comes to making a decision on whether to take on an assignment I have my own personal guidelines. Here are my seven rules. I would be interested in hear what any other writers have to say on the subject.

Nope, haven't been here.

1) Don't go too far out of your depth.

There's only been one case where I've written a destination piece on a country I'd never visited. It was an article written for Air New Zealand for Tokyo Weekender where I was asked to profile the city of Auckland. I've never been to New Zealand and I was upfront about it, but for whatever reason they still wanted me to do it. But apart from this one case, I've only ever written about destinations I've never visited when I was already very familiar with the country and region in question and could draw at least somewhat on my own experience. You could probably write about Jasper National Park without going there if you've been to Banff or Waterton and have a grasp of Canada's Rocky Mountain Parks in general. Writing about Jammu and Kashmir without having been anywhere in northern India - that's a different story.

2) Talk to at least two different people who know it well.

This also applies to writing about a place you kind of know but haven't spent a great deal of time in. Get a second opinion. And especially if you've never been there, get a second and a third opinion, lest you be stuck with a singular viewpoint that you can't actually back up. My advice would be to find two people of different backgrounds who know a place - perhaps one native-born resident and one ex-pat. Possibly both a male and female view of the place. Get creative. If you don't know anyone from somewhere, call a local travel bureau and find someone to talk to.

3) Do your homework.

It goes without saying that you need to do your research for any travel destination piece, even one that you know intimately. Ownerships change, restaurants go out of business, people change phone numbers, new train and bus services are added - you need to stay current. This applies all the more when you're writing about a place you don't know very well - or don't know at all. Get to know the history of the place. Get to know its character. Familiarize yourself with every facet of the place that you can - everything short of physically going there. And wherever possible, immerse yourself in photographs of the place, which will help you flesh your writing out with physical description of things.

4) Use quotes from famous locals, noted authors etc.

Don't have any personal anecdotes about a place? Use other people's. I once wrote an article about famous ryokans (traditional inns) in Japan and wasn't able to get to all of them in person, but it proved to be not too difficult to dig into their histories and find out what famous people had visited them, and what certain poets of yesteryear had written about the surrounding region. Fill your writing with as much local colour as you can and say something like, "Don't take my word for it; the poet Basho thought this place was the BOMB!"

5) Profile things that don't required first-hand, on-site knowledge.

Haven't been here either.

Are there any big travel promotions on that pertain to the place you're writing about? Any new air connections, train services, tourist campaigns etc.? In the absence of a wealth of first-hand knowledge, go with information that your reader is going to want but that don't require in-depth knowledge. Remember that if your reader is engrossed in the article, they're likely actually interested in going to the place in question, which means they're going to want to know how to get there, how to get around, how can I economize while I'm there and are there any special events I need to check out. And for all of these, you can provide extensive information without having to go there yourself.

And if there aren't any special events or anything noteworthy going on, it's worth asking yourself if this particular destination is worth covering at all.

6) Check your facts after you're done.

Again, this really should go without saying. By this point, you should have established good working relations with your field sources. Run your draft by them and make sure what you're saying makes sense and actually applies. And again, if possible, get a second and possibly a third opinion.

7) If at all possible, do actually go there - even if only for a couple of hours.

To be fair, this is often impossible, but when I lived in Tokyo it was sometimes feasible to make a very quick trip someplace, get off the train, have a quick look around, find two or three interesting and/or quirky things to write about, grab a handful of brochures and go straight back to the big smoke. There were times where I didn't even leave the vicinity of the main railway station and was still able to get a quick sense of the vibe of a place - before grabbing a few brochures, talking to a few people in the local tourist office and then leaving. That's not going to be possible everywhere (namely in Canada), but wherever possible you should find a way to actually go somewhere, even if it's for a split-second in travel terms. If nothing else, it'll make the assignment easier.

For your reading pleasure, here's the article I wrote on Japan's historic ryokan back in the summer of 2008. Hint: of the six inns profiled in the article, I was only actually able to visit three of them. I would be curious to know if you can guess which ones they were.

7 Reasons Why Historians Make Great PR Pros

My apologies up front if this post comes off as a tad self-congratulatory. I of course am a history grad - and a PR pro, so this post could potentially be construed as a screed about how awesome I am. But that's not what I'm trying to do here. This is in fact a message to history grads out there who aren't quite sold on the academic path but don't know where else to ply their skills. There is a place for out-of-work historians, and that place is called public relations.

Granted, I am somewhat biased. I was once that history student who, for a time, saw myself embarking on a long career in academia. It didn't quite work out that way for a number of reasons, and after several years of dabbling in various fields I discovered the world of professional communications, and haven't looked back since. I still love the field, though. My MA thesis, which focused on minority religious sects in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s and the role they played in shaping the character of Japanese nationalism during that volatile period in history, is still something I'm quite proud of, and one that has translated into several spin-off articles in the ensuing years.


A great PR message if ever there was one.

In a way I still consider myself a 'historian', and indeed many of my posts here are very much about history in one way or another. I'm still very much interested in Japanese history, as well as in Russian and Chinese history, which I also studied in considerable depth in university. And the further I get in my PR studies, the more I've become interested in the history of the profession itself, be it the PR disasters of early companies like White Star Line or fascinating characters like Edward Bernays and Ivy Ledbetter Lee who made the profession what it is today. It seems that wherever I go, I still see the world through the historian's lens.

As for history grads making great PR people, I'm not just basing this assertion on my own experience. This is a refrain I've heard from more than one senior public relations practitioner. I believe it. After all, historians tend to be compelling communicators. From the BBC's Jonathan Ross and Louis Theroux to the likes of Conan O'Brien and Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G, Borat etc.), a disproportionate number of top TV personalities are history grads. A lot of policy advisors have history backgrounds. And yes, you do meet quite a lot of public relations and marketing people with history degrees. It seems to go with the territory.

Why, then, are historians particularly well-suited to the PR field? Apart from the fact that there are a hell of a lot more jobs in PR than there are in history departments, seven reasons spring to mind.

1. Historians tend to be excellent writers.

This one is a no-brainer. There are few academic disciplines that call upon students to do as much writing as history, making it an excellent training ground for a field that more often than not involves a lot of wordcraft. Also, the type of writing that is de-rigueur in the discipline of history, namely clear, concise, reader-friendly prose rather than heavy academese, is exactly what is needed in the PR field. Most PR job descriptions rank writing at or near the top of the required skills, and there's nothing like a history degree to turn you into a writing machine.

2. Historians know a good story when they hear it.

Storytelling and narrative are the heart of the historian's craft. History is nothing more than the totality of humankind's stories, the grand tale of how we all got to where we are today. Public relations is also all about storytelling, about relating compelling narratives about organizations, companies, brands, political candidates and so on. Why should we be interested in the story of British Airways or Greenpeace or Alison Redford? The same reason we should be interested in the Ottoman Empire or the women's suffrage movement. Everything has a compelling story to it - and a good historian/PR pro will find it.

3. They're good at, well, learning from the past.

Organizations facing PR problems often have deep-rooted problems (known in the field as 'smouldering crises') that go back much further than most people would realize. When Korean Air was trying to recover its image following a string of disastrous accidents in the 1980s and 1990s, it was found that the crux of the problem was an authoritarian, non-communicative cockpit culture that hearkened both to the country's recent past as a military dictatorship and even further into premodern feudal culture, leading the company to make vast, sweeping, well-publicized changes to its HR culture. While it doesn't take a historian to realize that learning from the past is a good idea, historians are particularly attuned to its importance.

4. Two words - research chops.

The word 'history' itself derives from the Greek historia, which means 'knowledge acquired by investigation'. As an academic discipline, history is a hell of a lot of writing preceded by even more research, and the higher up you get the more complicated that research becomes. Once you get to the graduate level, you're going to be pulling out all the stops, research-wise, from arcane microfiche and dusty old tomes to digital databases of various sorts. Public relations is often a very research-intensive field, and while a history grad entering the profession is invariably going to have to learn new research tricks and approaches, chances are they will approach said challenges undaunted.

5. History grads are likely to speak another language.

This isn't necessarily the case, but it often is. Graduate students in the history department at the University of British Columbia (where I did my MA) were all required to pass a language exam (whatever language was relevant to their work) before moving on to the research portion of their program. Even students doing British or American history were required to prove their proficiency in a non-English language, be that a dead language like Latin or something tangentally relevant like French or Spanish. While a knowledge of Ancient Syriac or Aramaic is unlikely to be of much use in the PR field, a living second language certainly helps, and historians are likely to have one.

6. They have a lot of 'worthless knowledge' at their disposal.

Here's the thing about historians: we know a lot of random stuff. We're the type of people you hate to play against in Trivial Pursuit because we actually do know what the capital of Macedonia is and how many conspirators were involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Historians as a general rule are trivia addicts, and while it's easy to poo-pooh much of this as 'worthless knowledge', it certainly helps in a professional field where one is often required to leap from one domain of knowledge to another, be that pipeline politics one day and Aboriginal duty-to-consult policies the next. It certainly helps to have good baseline level of knowledge in a lot of different areas.

7. Sociability - at least by academic standards.

This may not be true across the board, but in my experience historians tend to have a wild party animal streak. (Apparently Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has a history background, which doesn't surprise me.) I don't know if this is simply borne out of a love of animated beer-fuelled conversation or whether it's the product of a sober awareness of the fact that the world could erupt in catastrophic warfare at any moment due to some epic foreign policy screw-up and a crazy Serbian with a semi-automatic pistol. Either way, historians tend to be sociable and animated people - and in PR this makes all the difference.

Split Between PR and Journalism? Why Not Do Both?

It's official! CareerCast.com's recent ranking of the best 200 occupations in the United States echoed what many have been saying about the state of journalistic profession in North America for a long time, ranking 'newspaper reporter' a paltry 196 out of 200 professions. (In case you were wondering, 'lumberjack' was ranked #100 and software engineer #1.)

Public relations executive, meanwhile, was ranked at #70. The U.S. News and World Report ranked it even higher at #41, noting that the average annual salary for a US PR exec is an impressive US$91,810. The CareerCast survey did, however, note that it was the seventh most stressful profession in the country, following enlisted military soldier, firefighter, airline pilot, military general, police officer and event coordinator. Nobody ever said life was easy on the 'dark side'.

Not surprisingly, news of journalism being the fifth-worst job in the US swept the journalistic community, with reactions ranging from indignation to a sort of masochistic embrace of the aforementioned ranking as a badge of honour. Others still retorted along the lines of,"well, it may not be great, but at least I'm not in public f*cking relations!"

There is more than a modicum of disdain for the PR profession among the ranks of journalists. PR execs, we are told, are the Sith Lords to the noble Jedis of the press. The journalists who migrated to public relations are the turncoats, the Sarumans corrupted by money. Even some ex-journos within the PR profession can be heard making similar remarks. An anonymous journalist quoted a colleague who made the jump as saying, "I miss [journalism] every day, except twice a month - pay day."

Today, Ragan's PR Daily published an excellent piece by Aurora University Communications Director Dave Parro entitled '8 Reasons Journalists Should Consider PR'. While he didn't specifically cite the elephant in the room (money), he did provide eight compelling reasons why public relations has many of the same appeals of the journalistic profession except without many of the downsides that have made so many journalists demoralized. The reasons he cites are as follows:

• You still get to tell great stories.
• You get to shape the story.
• You get to be an advocate.
• You still get to regularly learn something new.
• You don’t have the emotional baggage.
• You get to be optimistic.
• You still have constant deadlines.
• You understand what makes a great story.

Of these eight points, number three is perhaps the most counterintuitive to many journalists with a jaded view of public relations. PR people for the most part gravitate to organizations whose mission and goals are aligned with their own. While this isn't always the case, at least early on in a PR career, it's certainly the ideal situation for anybody in the profession, and it goes without saying that the most effective PR professional is one who is highly engaged and committed to the cause of an organization.

Likewise, the best journalists are more often than not people who are dedicated to a specific set of issues and pursue it day in, day out. And given the ever-more monopolized and corporatized nature of newspaper ownership and the effect this has on editorial content, it is tempting to suggest that journalism is the wrong place to be for a person with strong convictions and a desire to tell difficult and not-always-popular stories. For people like these, could the 'dark side' in fact be the best road to take?

However, I maintain that this Manichaean view of journalism and PR isn't necessarily the case. Why couldn't one do both? After all, the advent of blogging and citizen journalism means that anyone who can write and conduct and interview can do 'journalism'. Granted, there are limitations to what one can do in this capacity. As an independent journalist you don't have access to the same resources that a reporter for a major newspaper has, and as a PR professional you don't want to be doing independent work that conflicts with your obligations to your employers or clients. Moreover, your connection to a specific organization can potentially be a liability, depending on where you work and what you're reporting on.

On the other hand, provided you avoid any potential conflicts of interest (which ideally is a non-issue due to the focal points of your work aligning with what you care about), this is as close as you're going to get to living the superhero dream while still upholding your adult responsibilities. In the comic book world, Clark Kent and Peter Parker supported themselves as reporters while serving as flamboyantly costumed public advocates of justice in an extracurricular capacity. Today's Kents and Parkers are invariably PR guys by day and online caped crusaders against ignorance and misinformation by night, one Tweet and blog post at a time. Many of them even have their own costumes, which they wear to blogger conventions.

The downside to this? In the list of the most stressful professions, 'superhero' was conspicuously absent, but one can only imagine that given the demands of the job it probably outranks even soldier and firefighter. And if PR exec is already at number seven, adding 'citizen journalist' to your mantle is unlikely to bring that down at all. But if you're an adrenaline junkie who cares a hell of a lot and can survive on three hours' sleep, go for it! You might want to come up with a catchy pseudonym first, though.

The Amazing Power of the Words "Thank You For Your Message"

I was recently forwarded an excellent article by Business Insider managing editor Jessica Liebman entitled 'The Number One Mistake People I Interview Are Making These Days'. That mistake? Not sending a follow-up email thanking the interviewer for the interview. As Liebman explains, not sending a thank you message after an interview ends up inadvertantly sending the message that you're either ambivalent about the job in question or you're disorganized and forgot about following up. Either way, it goes without saying that this is not a message you want to be sending to a prospective employer.

This article, however, got me thinking about the broader power of the words 'thank you' within the context of the PR profession. As a professional communicator, I consider it my job to response as promptly as possible to emails. Much of the time it's a two-sentence response along the lines of "Thank you for your message. I will be getting back to you shortly." In exactly ten seconds I've managed to acknowledged that the person's message has been received, thank them for it and communicate my intention to follow up on the matter. And as a bonus, the word 'shortly' is nicely ambiguous, meaning that it's now up to you whether it means 'in ten minutes' or 'by the end of the week'.

One of my biggest pet peeves as a communications professional is when people don't take the trouble to do this. As PR people, we are in the business of encouraging two-way communication, and by not taking ten seconds out of your day to respond to email messages you are hindering that process. When I send an email and don't get any sort of response, my default assumption is that either I typed the wrong email address or that the person I'm writing to has left the organization, or something else along those lines. It's always very anticlimactic - and irritating - to find out that Person X did indeed get my message but gave no acknowledgement to that effect.

Beyond simple courtesy, there are any number of good reasons why a quick thank you message is good practice for anyone working in a communications capacity. Here are my top five reasons:

1) It's easy and it only takes a few seconds.

2) It generates goodwill on the part of clients, stakeholders and inquiring publics - and shows what an awesome communicator you are.

3) It helps perpetuate two-way symmetrical communication, which is the goal of any decent PR professional.

4) It buys you time by saving you the trouble of responding to numerous pesky follow-up emails.

(Note: You may still get pesky follow-ups, but if you've already communicated your intentions, you've done your job as a communicator.)

5) It helps keep you organized.

This last point is an added benefit of sending a quick note of thanks in response to a request. In my experience, you're far less likely to forget to do something when you've taken the trouble to state your intention of doing it. It's usually best to have a personal routine whereby you follow said thank you emails with a note on a whiteboard, a post-it note on your computer screen or a new 'task' in your Outlook - whatever be your aid-to-memory of choice. Procrastinating on responding to an email is a great way of ensuring that whatever it is you have to do doesn't get done, meaning heaps of unnecessary stress a week or a month down the road.

In sum, if you want your work as a communicator to run as smoothly as possible, always respond to emails with a quick acknowledgement. Phone messages are a somewhat different matter, requiring a bit more planning and time, but there's rarely any excuse for not responding to an email as soon as you receive it. The same also applies to social media inquiries, the whole point of which is to facilitate near-instant two-way communication.

In the meantime, I would like to thank Nikki Van Dusen (@nikkivandusen) for giving me the heads up on the Business Insider article. And to everybody else, thank you in advance for reading - and if you have any inquiries about anything related to this blog (or anything else for that matter) I will be getting back to you shortly. Seriously.

PR, Prejudice and Competent Men Named Steve

It’s been six months since I began work at Merit Contractors Association. For those of you who don’t know it, Merit is an association that represents some 1,300 construction companies across Alberta. Merit provides employee benefit packages for non-union construction firms as well as construction training and industry advocacy.

One of my current priorities has been promoting apprenticeship programs in the trades. Those of you who follow Alberta business news may have heard the dire predictions about looming labour shortages in the construction industry, due primarily to a forthcoming mass exodus of the boomer generation from the labour force. As such, construction training and apprenticeship programs are going to be absolutely vital in keeping the industry going.

As communications guy with Merit, I am tasked with helping promote careers in the trades and combatting stereotypes about them, namely that they’re where people go who aren’t smart enough to get into university. The irony of this, of course, is that I fit just about every stereotype of the egghead types who tend to hold prejudicial views of this industry. With an MA in Japanese History and a serious language study addiction, I might at first glance seem like the worst person in the world to be tasked with promoting careers in the construction trades.

The truth is that I’ve long had an inferiority complex when it comes to people – especially men – who are adept at fixing and building thing, as opposed to me who barely knows which end of a hammer to hold. Humourist Dave Barry famously referred to these types as “competent men named Steve” in Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys, in which he admits his own crippling insecurities vis-à-vis plumbers, electricians and other burly, big-bicepped blue-collar dudes who come into the house and save the day. I do not feel even remotely superior to a pipefitter or a sheet metal worker. Say what you like about crisis communication - if civilization really were to collapse in ruin tomorrow, it's people like me with zero manual skills who would be the most screwed.

Nevertheless, in my professional life I’ve been drawn to one job after another that have pushed me outside my cultural comfort zone. Ironically, my teaching and copy editing jobs in Japan were probably the “safest” jobs I’ve ever had in this respect. At Native Counselling Services of Alberta, where I worked for two and a half years, I grappled with topics like intergenerational trauma, racial and cultural stereotyping and Aboriginal over-representation in the correctional system – from the standpoint of a person of privilege. And now I’m an egghead in the construction industry, a world that's always been foreign and somewhat intimidating.

What does this mean for me as a PR professional? If nothing else, in both my current and previous jobs I brought a certain amount of outside perspective, which is conducive to crafting messages that resonate among external publics. It’s also forced me to do my homework. After six months in the construction biz, I now know a great deal more about the industry than I did before (which admittedly isn't saying much) and I continue to learn more every day. And it’s also forced me to confront my own preconceptions, and in doing so I would to think it’s helped me combat stereotypes and prejudice out in the world.

In PR, much is said about ‘publics’ and ‘stakeholders’. You’ve got your news media, social media publics, external and internal publics, lawyers, regulators, investors and government. But as a PR professional, the first public you have to convince is invariably yourself. Getting to the root of the truth and getting that truth out through all the ‘noise’ of society is the essence of public relations. And if you can’t cut through your own ‘noise’, you’re not going to disseminate anything worthwhile.

It also doesn't hurt to align yourself with the Steves of this world. If and when civilization does collapse, no amount of good PR will put a shelter over your head or protect you from roving predators. But these guys might.

10 Tips for Failsafe Proofreading

As a professional writer, editor and communications guy, I've done a hell of a lot of proofreading over the years. I've proofread just about every kind of document there is, from gigantic government policy papers to tiny event invitations and everything in between. I proofread my wife's writings, my current public relations class assignments, these blog posts and even my Facebook and Twitter posts before I press 'Send'.

This is not to say that I'm necessarily the world's most brilliant proofreader. Actually I'm not. I've had bad days or even weeks when I've let all kinds of egregious mistakes slip the net, sometimes in other people's work but more often in my own. There have been times when I've had to go back and edit my own blog posts after finding spelling mistakes and I've even deleted and reposted Facebook posts after that 'egad' moment where you catch a glaring typo a split second too late. I've even deleted misspelled Tweets ('Twuckups' as they're known), although you can never truly 'delete' a Tweet. Once it's out there, it's out there for good.

Nor do I particularly enjoy proofreading. Actually, it's one of my least favourite activities, down there with scraping frost off the car windows, cleaning the fridge and pulling the drawstring out from inside my swimsuit after a particularly rough journey through the washing machine. No, it's a pretty annoying job but I resign myself to it because the alternative is shoddy writing full of typos, syntax errors and dropped prepositions. It's not fun but it is worth it. Missed typos are like that big honking zit in the middle of your forehead that you know everyone is staring at but you can't do anything about.

Anybody who does a lot of proofreading is bound to have their own list of proofing tips. Here are my top ten, for what they're worth.

1)      Print it out first.

Trust me on this one - you'll catch more mistakes on paper than you will on the screen. Firstly, a printed copy is easier on the eyes - not to mention a faster read. And secondly, that shift in perspective from the screen to the page helps jog your mind and helps you focus on the actual words on the page. By all means do a first sweep on your computer with the changes tracked to catch the big stuff, but when it comes to spotting missing commas, dropped articles and spelling mistakes that your spellchecker won't find, you'll want it on paper.

2)      Proofread in a different room from where you usually work.

You may remember the famous scene in the movie Dead Poets Society when Mr. Keating (played by Robin Williams) commands his students to stand atop their desks in order to see the world around them from a different perspective. The same idea applies to proofreading. When I'm at work I will print the document and take it to a vacant office or the cafeteria (any room without a computer screen will do), which helps give me fresh perspective on my own work. If I'm editing freelance stuff at home, I'll go to a different room in the house - usually the kitchen table.

3)      Use a fine-tipped pen with a comfortable grip.

Nothing sets you off to a bad start at proofreading than having your first red mark soak through the page and slowly saturate the paper like an oil spill. A fine-tipped pen will help you avoid this problem, and if you're doing a lot of proofing you're going to want to invest in an ergonomic, easy-on-the-hand pen for the job.

4)      Read every single word to yourself.

Eventually the Devil will whisper into your ear that nothing is wrong, that there's no reason not to skip a word or two here and there. Don't do it. 

5)      Read it backwards, sentence by sentence.

The result of this will be that none of what you've written will make sense. That's kind of the point. Reading your work backwards sentence by sentence will help divorce the words from their intended meaning, leaving you with nothing but words and grammatical underpinnings, which is exactly what you're supposed to be focusing on. When I was working as a full-time English language copy editor in Tokyo, there would be days when I would finish my work day with absolutely no recollection of anything I had read that day because I was reading solely for grammar and not for content.

6)      If you listen to music, make it instrumental and non-intrusive.

Some people advise against listening to music at all while proofreading. Personally I find it helps relieve the tedium, but only if we're talking about non-intrusive ambient music. For proofreading listening, I personally like Brian Eno's Music for Airports, Ryuichi Sakamoto's solo piano music, electronic ear candy à la Boards of Canada and Autechre and anything by Bach, Erik Satie or Philip Glass. Music with lyrics is going to be distracting and suffice it to say, anything by a band with a misspelled name (i.e. Megadeth, Korn, Mötley Crüe) is a recipe for disaster.

7)      Give yourself little rewards.

If you're at work, promise yourself a coffee break, 10 minutes on Facebook or a round of Angry Birds after you're done. If you're at home, promise yourself a beer after you've finished. If you're looking at an entire afternoon proofreading heavy legal or financial documents, trust me - you'll need a drink afterwards!

(Note: Do not - I repeat - do NOT try to proofread while under the influence of alcohol! By all means drink while you write, as many of history's greatest wordsmiths have been fond of doing, but trying to proofread under any condition other than stone-cold sobriety is a complete waste of time.)

8)      Get all your proofing done before you input your changes.

A whole lot of back and forth will not only slow you down but it will also increase the likelihood of fresh errors. Get it all done on the page before you take it back to the computer. Treat your proofreading assignment like a crime scene - cordon it off and then comb the entire scene for evidence before you take it back to your crime lab for study.

9)      For the love of God, save your work!

This should go without saying, but I've been there and (not) done that.

10)   Write a blog post purporting to teach people how to do better proofreading.

Because you're really going to look like a total doofus if you purport to be an expert on proofreading and then commit conspicuous word bloopers of your own. As reader of this post, you're doubtless going to be looking extra hard for errors here. Good luck with that.

For further resources on proofreading, editing and wordsmithing in general, I highly recommend the site Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

Should you do freelance work that's related to your day job?

Don't rock the industry boat unless you're self-employed.

I just completed an assignment for Alberta Venture on competitiveness issues in the construction industry in Alberta, with a particular focus on labour productivity and cost control strategies. This article, which will be appearing in the January 2012 issue of Venture, marked my first ever freelance assignment related to the construction industry – and industry in which I have been working as a communications specialist for about two and a half months.

I initially balked at the assignment when I was first offered it, thinking that it might be problematic vis-à-vis my day job. However, to my surprise, my employers actively encouraged me to take it on, thinking it would be good for both the company and for my own professional development. In terms of the latter, it definitely was educational for me, imparting me with a deeper understanding of the issues facing the industry than I previously had. As for the former, it remains to be seen if the article will result in any positive PR for my employers, but my boss was certainly happy with what I wrote.

Over the course of my seven years as a freelance writer, I have frequently been asked to write about topics closely related to my day-job activities. During my two and a half years at Native Counselling Services of Alberta, I produced a steady stream of articles on Aboriginal topics, most recently for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan’s quarterly magazine. (See my November 1 entry.) During my years working for a Tokyo translation company there was considerable overlap between my freelance and salaried work life, although my day job at the time covered so many different domains, ranging from finance to industry to tourism, that enforcing a strict separation between nine-to-five and freelance topics would probably have meant giving up freelance writing altogether.

Nevertheless, any experienced freelancer knows full well that taking on freelance work that’s closely related to the work you do for a company or organization as a salaried employee is a delicate affair. At the best of times, taking on extracurricular work in your nine-to-five bailiwick can improve your stock significantly. However, as an employee there are invariably issues facing your company or organization that you don’t know about, and a well-meaning but uninformed treatise with your name on it can backfire disastrously. And in today’s wired world, you can be pretty much certain that whatever you write will get back to your employers.

Should you do freelance work that’s closely related to your day job? It really depends on the situation. Sometimes it’s not only fine but in fact beneficial to your employers, and they may well actively encourage it. However, it may well be that the political and business sensitivities of particular issues are such that the messaging needs to be tightly controlled – and as an employee you have no business writing about it outside your role as employee. At the very least, a policy of transparency with your employers is always the best solution. If you’re considering writing about your day-job subject matter, make sure you clear it with your employers beforehand – and be prepared for the fact that they may say no. A $500 writing gig is not worth a world of hurt at the office for months afterward.

As a freelancer, I have always made a point of being open with my employers about my extracurricular writing activities so as to avoid any unwelcome surprises on the part of the people I work for. In the era of Facebook and Twitter, everything gets around, and so will your writings. Even if what you’re writing about has nothing to do with what you do from nine to five, it can still ruffle feathers at work if you’re not careful.

Beyond this, here are my top five advantages and disadvantages of doing freelance work that’s related to your regular gig.

Advantages

1. It’s easier.

You typically know more about the subject to begin with and contacts for interviews and so on are rarely hard to track down.

2. It’s faster.

Ready access to research materials and relevant contacts make it easier for you to complete assignments that require fast turnaround.

3. Clients are more likely to accept your pitches.

Writing about a topic which you also deal with in a professional capacity, with an official organizational or corporate job title to advance, is a definite selling point when pitching stories to magazines, newspapers and copywriting clients, increasing your likelihood of getting the work you’re looking for.

4. It can make you better at your job.

Especially if you’re a relative newcomer to a field (like myself in the construction industry), taking on relevant writing work is a great opportunity to get yourself educated and broaden your knowledge of a field with which you’re still becoming acquainted. And even if you’ve been working in a field for years, freelance work is a way of branching out of your regular focal points in the same way that a sabbatical allows an academic researcher to change gears in their research.

5. It can boost your professional reputation – and that of your employers.

A well-written article in a magazine or newspaper that’s consistent with your employers’ objectives but not so close as to be construed as a PR piece can do wonders for your personal relationships with your stakeholders and your overall esteem within the profession.

Disadvantages

1. It can get boring.

If you’re singularly passionate about your field and want to do nothing but write about that specific topic, this point doesn’t apply. However, if you’re like me, you like some variety in your freelance life and being stuck writing about the same things that you write about 40 hours a week can get frustrating.

2. You run the risk of being seen as a one-trick pony.

Again, some writers market themselves as specialists in a specific field. However, if you’re marketing yourself as a diverse operator and want to be open to all manner of assignments, getting too embedded in a single field, especially if it’s also your day job, can be detrimental.

3. You may have a slanted viewpoint.

There are certain advantages that come with taking on a totally fresh topic, or at the very least something relatively new. Among other things, your viewpoint on it is likely to be relatively unbiased. Conversely, if you’ve been writing on a topic for years, it can be hard to divorce yourself from the filter through which you’ve come to see it. And even if you can see past said filter, you may not be in a position to do so for the reasons outlined in #5.

4. There is little – if any – margin for error.

While any writer worth their salt endeavours to be as informed and accurate as possible, we’re all human beings and we all make occasional mistakes. If you make a mistake in an article about a subject matter that you don’t have to deal with outside of that particular context, said mistake probably won’t follow you around like a bad cold. If it’s a topic wherein you’re expected to be an expert by virtue of your position with an organization or company, it’s a different story completely.

5. The reverse of Advantage #5 is equally true.

For all the reasons outlined in the introduction, you have to be very careful when writing about your day-job subject matter, at least when you’re writing something that will have your name on  it or will otherwise be traceable back to you. Fortunately I’ve never had to deal with a situation like this, as I’ve always been careful, but an imprudent article will at the very least cause bad blood at work – if it doesn’t actually get you fired.

Moreover, even if your employers are amenable to such extracurricular work, you may find that the sensitivities with which you are forced to contend place so many limitations on your work that you’re better off passing on it and doing something completely different. Again, it totally depends on the situation.

None of this, of course, applies if you have a bone to pick with your employers and are actively trying to undermine or sabotage them. But it goes without saying in this case that you’ll be using an assumed name and an IP address that’s not traceable to you. You may even consider a 90's-style zine that you photocopy and distribute by hand on a streetcorner. Just don't let your boss see you doing it.