THINKing

Grandma Says

Southern grandmothers have often said, “there are only three times a respectable person’s name should be in the paper: when you are born, when you are married, and when you die.”

This is the one area in which I part company with my grandmothers.

LinkedIn Update Has Facebook Flair

LinkedIn released its updated version last night and took a lot of direction from Facebook, according to Webware,

Business social-networking site LinkedIn unveiled a redesigned homepage with a number of updates on Wednesday night. It’s the latest step in an ongoing initiative to prove that LinkedIn is more than a glorified address book by encouraging more professional interaction among users.

46 Essential PR Links

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More links for your PR pleasure:
Media Information
Assignmenteditor.com
Columbia Journalism Review
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
HonestReporting.com
O’Dwyers
PR Week
Poynter.org
PR Watch.org

News/Business Information
Associated Press
AP Breaking Stories
BBC
Bloomberg.com
BusinessWire
CNET News.com
Financial Times
Fortune 500
Global 500
Hoovers
National Public Radio
PR Newswire
Reuters
Scripps Howard
UPI
World Wires

Die Damn You, Part Deux

Today’s dinosaur that needs to die is ad agencies. OK, I know I am biased on this subject since it is my sworn duty to become the creative resource for all Fortune 1000 corporations, displacing their agencies. But let’s forget about that tiny detail for a moment, shall we?

Die, Damn You!

Yep, it is time for newspapers to die. Let’s stop killing the trees, and publish them solely online. Newspapers just refuse to accept the inevitable. Marc Andreessen, the man who brought us Netscape, agrees. He has started the New York Times Deathwatch.

Supersize Your Logo

Tired of the ads your agency delivers that have small logos, excessive white space and no starbursts? Look no further!

Top 17 Media Relations Links

The digital world is changing how PR pros perform media relations. You don’t just have to send releases to journalists today. Now, you can reach your key audiences directly with releases. But there still are some tried-and-true media relations practices:

• researching news releases and features
• writing releases and features

Best of 2007

Tom Pick at WebMarketCentral has a good series of posts that outlines some of the best marketing-related blog articles from last year. And I am not just saying that because Tom  has included some of my posts in his Best of series. OK, well maybe that does have something to do with it. After all, I’m only human. Thanks for the kind words, Tom.

Color Me Orange

It seems that every major – and minor – corporation adopts blue or red for their brand identity color scheme. These colors may be “safe” for the Bank of Americas and Wachovias of the world but are not necessarily the best choices for your brand.

When Billboards Go Bad

Some people are fans of good things. I tend to lean toward the dark side. There is nothing funnier to me than an ad execution gone horribly wrong. If you like this kind of thing, you’ll appreciate The Bad Billboard Project, which calls itself,