That Solo Life: The Solo PR Pro Podcast

Navigating the PR Pro/Journalist Relationship: Finding Grace in Communication

PR pros and journalists share a lot of common ground, including stress levels. Sometimes communication breaks down. Sometimes, whether it’s beyond our control or not, we can’t give the other what they want or need. But what we can do is continue to do our best to work together.

Let us know what you think of today’s episode at soloprpro.com.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you today?

Karen Swim, APR (00:19):

Hi. I am doing so great, Michelle. How are you?

Michelle Kane (00:22):

I'm doing well. Not bad. For a Monday. Monday, Monday. Isn't that how it goes in the wrestling ring or I think dirt track races. Anyway. Yeah, not bad for a Monday. We're in the midst of the holiday season, but we thought we talked today about something kind of, well, it's kind of funny, we saw, but it also is all too real in our world. A little bit of a PR/Journo SmackDown

Karen Swim, APR (00:48):

And the smacks went both ways. Yes,

Michelle Kane (00:51):

Would you say about me?

Karen Swim, APR (00:54):

But

Michelle Kane (00:55):

Yeah, it happens. It happens. We all get frustrated with each other and wonder why we do the things we do the way we do them.

Karen Swim, APR (01:07):

That's so true. But my favorite smack downs always come with a caveat from a journalist that said that they used to be in PR and as justifies or that they know all, and maybe it was 20 years ago, and we all know that the world has changed dramatically since that time. So that would be like any of us pulling out an old job and going, yeah, I did that job, but did you do it this year?

Michelle Kane (01:38):

This year especially.

Karen Swim, APR (01:40):

This year especially. I'm just asking for a friend because there are, and I think that goes both ways. There are plenty of PR people that started on the journalism side, and if they did that 15 years ago, the world is vastly different for our journalist friends as well. So it is funny, but that they add that in as though like, well, I know, and that somehow gives me the authority to be completely icky to you and criticize your entire profession based on the actions of one person who may be new to the job untrained or completely stressed out and about to jump over a cliff and probably has the mental health hotline on hold as they're trying to hold it all together long enough to get to the end of the seer,

Michelle Kane (02:30):

Right? Because a lot of the times the issue is, oh, you reach out to us, you don't get back to us. We don't hear from you. And all the while not really realizing, well, we're herding our own cats over here. Our clients are equally busy and stretched out. So sometimes it is difficult to get them when the opportunity arises because they're not fully cognizant of the notion that when the opportunity hits, they have to be ready and not just, of course they can be mentally prepared, but no, you have to be available now. And sometimes that just doesn't get conveyed.

Karen Swim, APR (03:12):

And so in this particular latest SmackDown, it happened in a private forum which was so much nicer than it happening on X or happening on one of the open social media platforms because that's usually where you see it. And I will say that while we joke about this because, and we can laugh about the things that are said as a professional, whether you're a journalist or a PR person, it is so demoralizing to go to your feed and see something that is belittling your entire profession. And I think that there's a few things happening. One is that we do have multi-generations in the workforce, and I think we all have to stop and think about that and that every generation does not work in the same way that another generation works. And I don't mean that. I'm not saying that one generation is superior, has a different or a better work ethic.

What I'm saying is that some of the things that we assumed early on in our career are not true for every generation. And so we either have to come to a place where, and I do feel some of this is on employers to get everybody aligned on the same page. You need to teach people. Do not make these assumptions. If you are running a PR team, then you need to set the expectation, here's how you follow up with journalists. Here's the information that you provide in emails. Here's when you use email, here's when you use Slack. Here's when you make text and phone numbers available so that your entire team is operating from the same playbook. Don't just send them out into the world and expect that everybody is going to do this job The same way we have a generation of digital natives. We have actually more than one generation now, digital natives.

They do not use the phone to make phone calls. They really do not making a phone call seems invasive, and so they don't do it. And by the way, it's not natural to them to provide a phone number in a signature when people just don't use phones like that anymore. They use email, they use text messaging. And so I think it's unfair when you say there's no phone number in your email signature because not everybody does that anymore. And to be honest, a lot of people have been warned against doing that because phone numbers aren't an identifier and there's so much fraud out there. We're all trying to protect as much of our information as possible. I get that there are workarounds, believe it or not, everyone knows about those workarounds and not everybody wants those rounds.

Michelle Kane (05:57):

Right? Right. And I think one of the key things that you honed in on there was establishing systems. If you have the systems in place, then everyone can at least be on the same page. So much as just from the thinking of, okay, all of us might have to step a direction outside of our usual comfort level or patterns for following the systems for press follow up or press contact. I think that's one way to work around it, but you're still not going to fulfill everyone's expectations just for you and your team. That's not for every single journalist out there journal. And there are particular proclivities.

Karen Swim, APR (06:37):

It's interesting that you brought that up because we all probably devour those how to pitch. One pitch does this, how to pitch, so-and-so it's X publication. Those are great. However, the way that one person likes to be pitched is not the way another person likes to be pitched. Sometimes you'll go on track and there are notes like, I only want to be pitched in the morning from nine to noon in my time zone. I will not answer you if I'm interested. You'll just have to wait.

I point out that as a PR professional, we are doing outreach to so many journalists. It is impossible to follow everybody's rules to the letter all the time. Sometimes you're just going to blow it sometimes with good reason. Sometimes you're needing to pitch a set of journalists on something that is time sensitive and you are trying to get your work done and serve your client. So you may send an email that comes at 1230 rather than by the new cutoff. God forbid. I personally try to adhere to all those rules, but I'm saying it's really unfair and unrealistic to burden PR people do the best. Always be respectful, make sure that you're pitching on target that it's relevant to that journalist. But outside of that, there are just some things that we may not get perfectly. Please do not burn us at the stake if we miss one of your particular rules.

If we use three sentences instead of two, or if our word count is five words over your maximum, please do not berate a poor PR person for that because they're not trying to be disrespectful. They're not trying to ruin your day. And I would say the same if journalists turn that around and you have to memorize all the rules for working with the PR people that you work with, you would go insane and you already have enough on your plate. We honestly are trying to make your jobs easier and we're also trying to get our jobs done. And by the way, sometimes the people that we work with and are working on behalf, they're not being the easiest. So give us a break.

Michelle Kane (09:05):

Yeah, I think what you hit on there is that, look, we're all doing our best and sometimes if someone's best doesn't measure up to your best, well give it some grace. Just count to five, scream, write the scathing post and delete it. But sure, are there absolute buffoons in any profession? Absolutely. What are you going to do? But don't always go from zero to you are the worst. I'm going to scream about it somewhere,

Karen Swim, APR (09:37):

And I mean this one particular rant was about a journalist and a PR pro that were working together and then one couldn't find the other. The communications weren't being answered. I want to tell you that that happens on a daily basis in media relations for every PR pro that I know, at least the solos. I don't know what's going on, but I can tell you every solo PR pro, 100% of us experience this routinely. Sometimes it's just because the journalist is just overwhelmed. It can't answer everybody when you're already establishing working together, because I promise you, every single time, even when there's a yes, even when there's interest, even when you're happy that we brought you information, even when you're in the middle of writing, sometimes you guys go away and we don't hear from you. Even when we've recorded something or done an interview and you tell us to do something and we come back immediately, we don't always hear from you right away and we get it.

Life is overwhelming right now for everyone. God forbid though, that the tables are turned and it's you who can't get in touch with a PR pro. Now I will say, I don't think that that's ever professional. I'm sorry if there's a problem, speak up. But here's the thing that I've noticed, people don't know how to communicate and they don't like to communicate bad news. They don't like to communicate. If you're a PR pro, we have a younger generation that just does not know how to speak up and say, Hey, I'm working really hard to get the response back from my client and they are not answering me. I'm so sorry. I know this is frustrating. They don't understand the value of protecting the relationship with the journalist. You're not throwing your client under the bus, but your tackle in how you're managing it, they just say nothing because they're just not comfortable with it.

I mean, have you ever gone into a store and watched how people don't even want to say hello because it's like this foreign thing now and it's sad to me. Of course, and I do think that if you're in PR that we need to do a better job of training our incoming PR people on soft skills as well as the heart skills. But Michelle, I love that you use the word grace. It's so appropriate. We just need to all give each other some grace and yes, it's frustrating. It makes everyone's job so frustrating, and we've all had those moments where you want to scream into a pillow or go throw axes after work because can I just get my job done?

Michelle Kane (12:17):

Yeah, no, it's so true. And what you said about communication is so important. It's like we're reluctant to give an update that maybe isn't ideal, but I always tell people, I would rather you tell me the same information two and three times, then not at all. Just hit me with it. I know how to hit the delete key if I don't want it to hear it again. It's really not that hard to do and it is true. So almost used to this passive means of communication that we just don't want to do it. It's like, oh, do I have to do that? It's like, yeah, just do it. We've all seen the different memes or the comics of that feeling when I did that task that took 10 seconds that I've been dreading for 10 weeks. Just do it.

Karen Swim, APR (13:07):

I mean, it's part of being in business and being a professional, and we really do need to get back to training people how to talk to one another and how to handle difficult conversations because I feel like this is becoming a loss art, and it's playing out not only in the workforce, it's playing out in families. How many parents are just not having hard conversations with their kids or teachers are dealing with parents when they tell them something that's not favorable in the nicest way possible. The parents are going off on the teachers. We are going to become a society where we just don't want to talk to anyone and we never address anything, and that's just not a good place to be. And so what we're not defending the actions of a PR person or a journalist who just drops out of communication with you unless they're sick or something else is going on.

And that's the other thing. You never know what people are dealing with in their personal lives. Sometimes people are working through illness, sometimes they are grieving and they just really are not themselves. Maybe they're dealing with pressures at work that just are overwhelming, and so we do have to take a step back. But even with those hard things, if you really are just not yourself, you don't have to disclose all of your personal information, but if it's about communicating and letting people know, at least like, Hey, I got your email. I'm so sorry. I have some things going on and I'm really behind. Here's where we are. Yeah,

Michelle Kane (14:46):

Exactly. Just to check in. Hey, I'm sorry if I've been unavailable to you. I really apologize. Apologize. Here's the latest status. That's it. It doesn't have to be a big deal, even if the other person's making it a big deal. You don't have to answer at that level. You don't have to meet them at the same volume or level of annoyance you can just sail on. That's the beauty of email. You don't have to just respond like that in the same tone,

Karen Swim, APR (15:14):

But please be available by a channel that you have set. Don't just ignore that channel.

Michelle Kane (15:21):

Exactly. Yeah. That's all we ask. Have some grace. Don't ignore it. It really won't hurt. Let's just keep each other updated. Let's help us do what we do because goodness knows there's enough going on around us to add to our stress, so we don't want to do that. But we hope you've gotten some value out of our time together today. If you do, please share it around. Please hit us up with your best stories at soloprpro.com. We would love to hear that. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.

 

Holiday Hacks

In this episode, Karen and Michelle provide some holiday hacks – from navigating client gifts to reducing stress, let’s make the most of this holiday season.

Share your favorite holiday hack with us at soloprpro.com.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:03):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. How are you, Karen?

Karen Swim, APR (00:19):

Hi, Michelle. I'm doing really good. I am ready for the end of this year. Yes.

Michelle Kane (00:27):

And how by the time this hits, I'm sure we're going to be in full on scurry mode, getting everything done. And you may be thinking, how is this going to come together in the next week or so? And that is why we're going to bring you some holiday hacks today, or at least some giggles at the least, hopefully. Who knows?

Karen Swim, APR (00:51):

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Michelle Kane (00:53):

We know how it is. It's like, oh, client gifts. What do I get them this year? Oh my goodness. Did I get, oh, there's a white elephant I have to do. Oh my goodness. Are we doing cards? I don't know. Are we doing cards? Who's buying stamps? What's happening? When is that store open? Especially post pandemic, those stores that you might be relying on having been open until 10 or 11 or goodness, even 9:00 PM What do you mean you're closing at 8:00 PM So let's just all take a moment, grab the nearest scented candle, take a nice inhale. Let's try and get through these last couple of weeks of the year together.

Karen Swim, APR (01:30):

Yeah, and I think, I don't know about anybody else, but I always, I overthink, so I overthink.

Michelle Kane (01:41):

I don't do that at all. Haha. All the time.

Karen Swim, APR (01:44):

So one of the holiday hacks is don't overthink it and stop doing the most. There are things that you can do that are still thoughtful without just going over the top. So for example, client gifts. There are sites like SugarWish and Snack Magic that you can just go online. You can buy the credits and they'll send a nice email link and to your clients and they can choose from treats, from all kinds of stuff, and they can pick out their own gift and have it shipped wherever they want. So if they're traveling over the holidays, they can have it shipped somewhere else. Perfect gift. All you need is an email address. So you don't have to go through all the stress of like, and if you have different client contacts, you can just go in and do the same amount of credit for each of the contacts and let them pick their own thing and call it a day. It's thoughtful, you're thinking of them. It's not. It's the thought that really counts. And I think we forget that. Or places like Pack for a Purpose. If you want to ship something to a bigger group, they have nice gift funnels in every single has a purpose. It supports some type of a nonprofit. So it's a definite feel good gift. So take the stress out of the holiday gift giving part by making it easier on yourself. Few clicks of the mouse and you're done.

Michelle Kane (03:15):

Exactly. So, so true. And if you're like me who has, well, they're not business contacts, but they're personal contacts who are out of the country. I like to try and shop local, but not a lot of businesses will have gift cards. You can just have a gift card emailed to the recipient and boom, there you go. Gift is given. For my locals, I like to try and shop local. There is a beautiful popcorn factory type place literally right up the street from me. So I usually go in with my little client list and I'm like boom, boom, boom. Everybody gets a can. And then of course I always make sure that the business card is on top. I don't want them to think they're getting that Walmart junk. You're getting real popcorn people.

Karen Swim, APR (04:08):

Yes. Well, and I love that you pick a place locally and just shop for all of your clients here again, we PR people sometimes are like, I'm going to customize each gift. And to admit in years past I've done that too. But it's stressful. You're adding the whole stress of this holiday season. Another hack is with your family, pick a day that's not the holidays. If you have lots of family and you traditionally maybe hop around a lot, don't do that. Just give yourself the time. This year, pick a day. I'm doing a sister brunch with my sisters and it's like 10 days before the holiday so that I see them. I'm probably not going to see them for Christmas and I don't feel bad about that. We're doing something separate. It's low key, it's a brunch, there's no gifts involved, there's nothing. But it's fun. It's holidays and we get to just spend time together. So we have to, especially these days because I don't think they feel so much harder.

Michelle Kane (05:12):

It really does. It really, really does. And I think another hack might be to let go of some of the things that you used to always do because you always did it. I know I used to be a fierce cookie baker and I still like to bake cookies, but I'm not going to make myself do it just to say, well, I usually do this, will I bake? A little bit? Probably. But it's like I don't want to, I'm over killing myself to say I holidayed in a certain way. And I think what you said is so important to give yourself that gift of time. And I'm not saying it's easy because sometimes when then I have that what I think is extra time, which is actually just plain old time, you get a little nervous. You think, oh, should I be doing something? What do I do with this? Sit your butt down and watch a Christmas movie. That's what you should do with this.

Karen Swim, APR (06:10):

It's a beautiful idea. And I mean even when it comes to client work, not saying coast, but we're saying focus on what's really important this year does. And this year especially, it feels like people have already checked out and we're at the very beginning of December. It's very, very quiet. So this is a good time for planning, a good time for strategy, a good time for going ahead and wrapping up those. If you do monthly type reports, start gathering all the information. I try to have my reports done weekly, even for a monthly so that when the last day comes in, I've already got the information all in place and I really just have to polish it and send it off. It does take a lot of the stress out. If you are responsible for content for clients, instead of writing new content, repurpose stuff, do roundups for their blogs, look at their LinkedIn newsletters and grab some stuff and do kind of a best of mix for the end of year because people are not paying that much attention anyway.

And sometimes we fall victim to our incredible work ethic and we just want to keep going, going, going, going. But it's a good time to just take it down a notch and not put the pressure on yourself to be Mr. Or Mrs. Perfect PR at the end of the year. It's okay. It really is. Okay. You can ease up on content, you can ease up on some of the activities with our clients. We set expectations around media relations. And it's not that we don't still have things to do, it's just that nobody's around and they're not answering stuff, they're over it. Right,

Michelle Kane (07:53):

Right. No, it's true. And I feel like that's, especially it's subtly I can't talk today, it's becoming a bit of the norm, I think. Yes. Are there some projects that are fast paced, full on, get it done? But I think for some of the more regular work that we might've been a little extra about in modern times, especially the last decade or so, I feel a little easing there, of, okay, yeah, we'll get it done. Alright, it's not on fire. It'll still happen. And I think too at the same time, because I know just attention spans of the people receiving our information, they can only take so much. So I think it all tends to balance out. So yeah, please do give yourself that time. This is the first year that I actually took purposely said, I am not going to officially work the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Now, did I end up doing a little work? Yes, I did. It was okay. It kept things moving, but it wasn't like, oh, here I go, I have to go sit at my desk. And I didn't want to. It was just, all right, let me handle that and then that'll take care of, so start now is a good time. Well actually when this airs, it's not a great time. Hopefully you've already planned it in when this is hitting your, hitting your ears. But if you're still struggling with whether or not you're going to take an extra day or so, please try to do it because if you don't do it now, when are you going to do it?

Karen Swim, APR (09:25):

And it's quiet, lean into the quiet. And on the client side, I know many of us do shut down the last two weeks or the last week of the year, and it only makes sense. And if you are feeling like there's some more client hours that you want to get in there, you can do things like go ahead and hold thought leadership calls, hold some quick thought leadership calls with your CEOs, your executives, and get content now and have it transcribed so that you have things ready to go in January when things restart. So you put the hours in this month, but it's not a heavy lift to just have those thought leadership questions done, do your agenda and have quick calls to get their thinking on things for next year. And now you're a step ahead for content and for trends and for ideas that you can be working on. But don't make things overly hard for yourself. Just try to find ways to do what you need to do. Do it well. But don't forget to enjoy this time of the year because it's one of those rare times in the year and we have Hanukkah, we have Christmas, we have New Year's celebrations. People really are taking off. And it would be a team to put pressure on yourself during a time when you legitimately can just take a breath because everyone is taking a breath.

Michelle Kane (10:51):

And like you said earlier, we are overthinkers, we are people who, it's in our nature. We want to dazzle. And I don't mean in a vapid way, we we're always striving to do the best work possible. And it's okay if you just again, just kind of relax a little bit and really, I don't think we can say this enough in this and maybe we're talking to ourselves, take that time to enjoy. And I can even feel it in my body right now as I'm saying it. It's going to feel uncomfortable. It's kind of like when I go to those every once in a while, my yoga studio will have a two hour, a special class where you really are deep relaxation and I am horrible at it. Okay, we're going to stay here in this pose for four minutes. And I'm like, okay, great. Halfway through. I'm like, are we done? Are we done now? Is this okay? Are we good? So don't be me,

Karen Swim, APR (12:01):

Don't be Michelle. No, enjoy the holidays. And on that note, we want to wish you all happy holidays. Whatever you celebrate during this time of year, we hope that it really is a joyous time. And for those of you who may be struggling during this time of year, we have you in our hearts and our thoughts and hope that you are surrounded by supportive people. And we just ask wherever you are, whatever you're celebrating, whatever you are going through, good or bad, just know that you're not alone. And we are sending our audience lots of love.

Michelle Kane (12:39):

Yes, indeed, we are. And to our friends who have celebrated Hanukkah by the time this comes around, we hope it was a really joyous occasion. We know this year hits a little different for many reasons, and we hold you in our hearts as well. But we hope just as we all move forward toward a brand new year, which I'm so excited for, we just want you to all be well and we care about you. And thanks for listening to us. We hope you get something out of hearing us jabber every week about the business that we so love. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.

 

Everyone is Amazing! Does Your PR Biz Need Personal Branding?

You make sure your clients are developing and working on their personal and corporate brands but when it comes to you and your solo practice, well, do as we say, not as we do. Does this sound like you? In today’s episode we dig in on personal branding and its value.

Let us know what you think at soloprpro.com.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my ever steady co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. We're all the savvy smarties gather. Hi Karen, how are you?

Karen Swim, APR (00:23):

Hey, Michelle. I'm doing great. How are you doing?

Michelle Kane (00:26):

I’m doing well. Can't complain. Can't complain. Here we are. By the time this episode airs, we will be in December. Oh my gosh.

Karen Swim, APR (00:34):

Yeah, that's a little scary. It's that time of year. It is that time of year.

Michelle Kane (00:39):

Yes. All the dates kind of cascaded upon each other and oh my goodness. We all have just an extra layer of things on our minds as we're trying to wrap up work and make sure we don't miss any holidays. And there's always family members and people with birthdays in December too. I don't know how they allow that, but

Karen Swim, APR (01:00):

I know

Michelle Kane (01:01):

It's okay

Karen Swim, APR (01:02):

Not to mention the layers of extra clothing and extra tasks for those of us who live where it rudely snows. So yeah, there's all the things and it's all happening so fast, and I just want to make like a bear and hibernate.

Michelle Kane (01:21):

So while December is being all extra, we're going to talk a little bit about the extra of personal branding today. How's that for a segue way? It's important. I was just skimming an article from Forbes saying that yes, you needed to stand out, and I think it's the Gen Xer in me, or I don't know, the introvert, whatever. It's like, oh, do I have to? And the answer is, yeah, you kind of have to.

Karen Swim, APR (01:48):

Yeah, we've all, for many of us, we obviously we're in public relations, and so we believe in personal branding as well as corporate branding. We have probably helped many executive in our careers to ensure that their executive brand was as polished and as thorough as the corporate brand. And we build thought leadership programs to support and amplify that. But when it comes to us and looking at our colleagues and our peers, I know for me it's easy sometimes to become jaded when you've been doing this job for a long time. It's like the way that we feel about email marketing. We know that it works, we know the right way to do it, but we don't want to do it ourselves because we struggle with inboxes that are constantly overflowing because we have to, as per our job, we have to have a lot of information coming at us.

So sometimes when I look at personal brands, I do, I'm like, “Ugh, everybody's perfect. Everybody's smart, everybody's winning, and you feel a little exhausted.” So I guess what we want to look at today is looking past our own fatigue at what's really working in personal branding, and is it really effective anymore? It seems like everybody has a brand. I mean, 10 year olds have a brand, they're adhering to their own brand guidelines and everybody's got perfectly polished Instagram worthy photos, and everybody seems to have a platform and they've all got their stuff. And in a world where personal branding is super accessible in terms of the visual look and feel, and even with content these days, which used to be the differentiator, everyone has access to be able to create content that aligns with their personal brand, is it all worth it? How do we stand out? Do we want to stand out? Do we care?

Michelle Kane (04:03):

No, I know what you mean. And I think it's especially difficult for us because we work in branding people and places and things that we can see it a mile away. We can see it when it's so shiny. And not that there's anything wrong with that necessarily, but I almost feel like we are all craving, audiences are craving a lot more authenticity. And I know that buzzword’s been around for a while, but I mean real, keep it real, because we've all seen the templates and we all know sure have the photo shoot, that's great, but I feel like we're at poised on this next layer of personal branding of, no, I really want to know what you're about. I want to know what truly makes you different. Not just, oh, well, oh, she's lit really well. Oh, okay. Everything's saying all the right things. And I think the additional differentiator is going to be letting more of yourself show, if that makes sense. I want to know what makes you tick what you're about. If it's a situation where I'm looking to work with someone, show me the warts, I don't necessarily need to see the sheen.

Karen Swim, APR (05:30):

Yeah, I think we've always talked about this in public relations and in marketing. We've talked about transparency, and we understand that you're never fully transparent because that's not a smart move to make. But we've talked about authenticity a lot over the years, and I think I agree with you that being the personal branding today, in a lot of ways, it's missing personality. So it's shiny and it's bright and it's happy and it's beautiful and it's visually appealing, and the aesthetics are amazing, but sometimes a little grit, a little of you really does help to stand out because at the end of the day, we know that today more than ever, people want to connect with people. They connect with corporations often even because of the people side of it, because of how that company shows up in the world and what they stand for. And that doesn't always have to mean social values or political viewpoints.

It can sometimes mean a brand that's true to being funny and they bring humor, they're light or a brand that cares about issues. It can be issues driven, but that they're true to who they are, and that you see something that says, yeah, that's that brand. And we talk about Patagonia a lot. That's a great example. Even Apple's a great example of a tech company that's really true to who they are. They are who they are. They make no apologies for it. With the personal branding, sometimes it does feel like everybody's interchangeable. It's like, okay, you're great. You're smart, you're winning another award. Good for you. Yay. You. What a beautiful picture. And you, sometimes I want to know, I want to see the grit. I want to see behind that shine. I want to know, how did you really get there? I want to hear some of the reality, because we know that your story, what you're sharing, your expertise didn't come without some bumps along the road. And you don't have to bear awe, but it's nice when people are honest about what it really takes.

Michelle Kane (07:59):

Yeah, I can think of people that I follow on Instagram both professionally and just for fun, and yeah, they have their polished brand, but they'll also just pop on. They'll just shoot a quick video, whether it's sitting at their desk or in their car and just talk about something quickly and just be relatable. It's not like, oh, I have my ring. Like, oh, wait, oh, oh, oh. And they're like, okay, now they just say, Hey, you know what? This crossed my path today and I'm dealing with feeling like an imposter, and sometimes I feel like that, blah, blah, blah. And it's just these little moments of relatability. And I think, yes, thank you. Exactly. And that doesn't take away from the professional expertise that they offer, not one bit. So I think, and I'm not saying that that's a new thing, it's not, but I think that's a way to go a little deeper with your personal branding.

Karen Swim, APR (09:07):

And I think you hit on something that's really key. It's not really all the shiny aesthetics. That's great because I look at those and I'm learning because I do videos and I am a hot mess. I don't have it all together. I don't have all the tools and all the shiny stuff. So I'm an example of somebody that's like, if you want to see a hot mess, but I am who I am, and probably still to a degree going to be kind of a hot mess. It's not that. I think what you said as communicators, we really know this and we drive this into the companies that we work with. Far too often people hide behind their playbook, and executives do this all the time. It's corporate jargon and sometimes it feels like pulling teeth to just get them to communicate. Talk to me like I'm a human being.

So I think what you said is really key. It's focusing more on connecting with your audience in a real way, by using words that are relatable and understandable and not defaulting to your industry playbook, whatever industry you might be in. And being so concerned with sounding smart to your audience that you lose them because you're not relatable. That to me is one way to stand out and understanding the reality. And it's interesting. I feel like companies have really had to grasp this with the tension between work, from home, return to office. They finally figured out, look, we got multi-generations and the workforce. We have a diverse group of people that we're working with, with diverse opinions, with diverse preferences. We ain't going to satisfy everybody, so we got to just do what we got to do. And some people are going to be unhappy, and we just have to live with that. And I feel like more of us need to adopt that attitude, realizing we are never going to be able to satisfy all of the people all of the time, and that should never be our goal. So be yourself. It's funny because I even feel like sometimes that when we think we're sharing a bit of ourselves with people, that too just becomes so sanitized. It's like, oh, I am the yoga wearing meditating PR professional, and it's so pretty and perfect. So now you're just incorporated fitness influencer into your brand, and it's annoying. I don't look that good in my yoga pants. I'm sorry. No,

Michelle Kane (11:49):

No, no.

Karen Swim, APR (11:51):

Five minutes to meditate. So it just, it's not, but that's okay. That person probably is not for me, and I'm being a little facetious. I'm not attacking people. Please don't take that away. I really am being a little facetious. But the point is, we should be relatable. Just communicate down a notch. You're still winning. You're still beautiful, wonderful, smart and shiny, but just make sure that you talk to people in a way that's real. Be your true self as a communicator.

Michelle Kane (12:26):

Yeah. Well, and it's important what you said, because not everybody is going to be for everybody, and that's okay. And to your point about those that stick to their playbook and the jargon, and flip that around, because if that's all you're doing and it's like you have a really difficult time being relatable, that's almost going to make me question your credibility. Because if it feels like you're just being stilted all the time and reciting the right things, I'm thinking, gosh, is if I don't have any other evidence of it, or is this all just a bit of a show? So that's something to think about. Don't be afraid to be yourself. I'm not saying be Rodney Dangerfield and Caddy Shack, although there's people for that persona too.

Karen Swim, APR (13:23):

But I mean, it's funny that you could lose people even when you're being creative. I read this funny Buzzfeed article, it actually, it was kind of funny, but a Buzzfeed article that was asking people, what movie did you see? And you thought, what the heck did I just watch? So we all can name a movie that we watch. Movies are entertainment, therefore, your enjoyment, your pleasure. And sometimes the writers, the people behind the movie are so busy being clever and different that they lose you. And you do, you sit through the movie and you go, what was that?

Michelle Kane (14:08):

What just happened?

Karen Swim, APR (14:12):

I can't get that two hours of my life back. And so don't be that. Don't be the movie The Circle, which was horrid. I promise you. I sort of got what they were trying to say and do. But that was one of the recent movies in history where I was like, what did I just watch? Because that was pretty bad.

Michelle Kane (14:35):

Oh man. Yeah. I'm trying to think. Nothing's coming to mind super quickly. Of what?

Karen Swim, APR (14:42):

Yeah.

Michelle Kane (14:44):

Well, and it's harder when you can see it, right? You can see them trying so hard and it's almost painful, and you think, no, no. Yes.

Karen Swim, APR (14:54):

So even if you're funny comedian, you're entertaining. That's part of your personal brand. Make sure that you're not too clever for your audience or it won't land, right?

Michelle Kane (15:06):

Right. So what we're really saying is what, keep it as natural as you can be yourself. Don't be afraid to show parts of your personality and your branding. Honestly, at the end of it all, it's really a way to let people get to know you. And there's that know, like, and trust factor of people wanting those three items fulfilled to do business with you. So we hope this chat today has been helpful as we enter what some call the silly season. We hope you're keeping your wits about you, and if you did get value from this, please do share it around. We would really appreciate that. That would be the best gift you could give us this year. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.

AI Shake-Ups, Solutions and Ethical Standards

In this episode we cover the turmoil at OpenAI, AI vetting PR pitches, and the newly-released Guidelines, Tips, and Best Practices for using AI from PRSA. Let us know what you think at soloprpro.com.

 

Transcript

Karen Swim (00:04):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi, Karen, how are you?

Karen Swim, APR (00:20):

Hello, Michelle. I'm doing great. How are you doing?

Michelle Kane (00:24):

Doing well, doing well. We're coming on this episode after Thanksgiving, so we hope all of you had a really terrific holiday with your family and friends and got to relax a little bit and are easing your way into the return to the workplace.

 

Karen Swim, APR

Except this year, was it really Thanksgiving or was it just pre-Christmas? Because in my neighborhood, people skipped right to Christmas before Halloween was even over. So I am surrounded by lit up subdivisions and Christmas lights. Not that they set it all up because the weather was nice, which would be smart, but they actually just pulled the trigger some people in as well. The weather was good. They just go ahead and set up all the outside stuff and then turn it on for Thanksgiving. No, no, no, not this year. We have full on Christmas here in Michigan, and that was before Thanksgiving, long before Thanksgiving. So I'm thinking Thanksgiving is, it's really losing its way.

Michelle Kane (01:35):

Yeah, it is. I mean, thankfully we have parades in football to keep us in check, but it is strange because I consider myself a pretty flexible Gen Xer, but there are certain societal cues that I need and some that I miss. So you have to have, the stuffing has to digest before I pull out the red and the green and the yellow and the blue and all that stuff. Back in the day, the Jerry Lewis telethon final tote had to happen before I would set foot back in my school. None of that happens anymore. It's

Karen Swim, APR (02:09):

Anything happens anymore, and I'm feeling like Thanksgiving is, it's going to go the way of Pluto. It's going to get demoted,

Michelle Kane (02:17):

Although

Karen Swim, APR (02:17):

It's going to come to be known not as Thanksgiving, but as carb loading for Black Friday. I don't know.

Michelle Kane (02:24):

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I think everything's faster. I mean, we've seen the online sales early Black Friday, but in a way that's good. I am seeing, I can't give you the list, but it's nice to see that some big box stores are having sanity, sanity has prevailed. They're either not opening on Thanksgiving or they're having relatively, I don't want to say decent, but their hours aren't too wild. But yeah, it's weird days. Weird days. Maybe it speaks to our general anxiety as a society. Let's just get it done.

Karen Swim, APR (03:01):

This could be, was the thought sparked by the great toilet paper raid of 2020? I don't know. Is that where it all started to turn?

Michelle Kane (03:10):

Hey, I don't know. I don't know but that would speak to my inner Girl Scout. Be prepared.

Karen Swim, APR (03:16):

This is true. So why not have Black Friday four weeks ahead of schedule so that the planners and the preppers could make sure that they got everything that they need on sale.

Michelle Kane (03:28):

That's right.

Karen Swim, APR (03:29):

Someone else, before it's all gone.

Michelle Kane (03:31):

I will say if you are still eating your tuna fish from 1999, please don’t.

Well, in the name of prepping, I don't know if this segue is terrible, but there's been some activity. I know this is shocking in the world of AI, artificial intelligence, especially as it touches upon our profession, by the time this hits your podcast queue, not sure where the situation with OpenAI is going to be because it seems to be every day there's something new happening. But recently, the board ousted the chair, and now some of the board, the employees are signing petitions to bring him back. And as someone pointed out on the news today, such an influential change-making organization in the hands of the number of people you can count on two hands, not a great thing.

Karen Swim, APR (04:40):

Well, it's interesting from so many perspectives, it is huge in the world of AI because when there's that type of a shakeup, so Sam Altman, the CEO was ousted, as you said by the board, but then some other key members, I guess left and then they appointed an interim, and then Microsoft hired Sam, but then there was a push to bring Sam back, and Sam I think was part of that push. And the whole thing is just weird.

For users of OpenAI. It does make you take a step back because first of all, when the CEO is ousted by the board, sometimes those are due to concerns that don't speak to the product or the quality, but it does make you pause and wonder if you can trust the product. When there's this level of turmoil at that level, it really does make you think about that. Is this really something that I should continue to use? Can I have faith in it? And AI is so, it's growing so fast and things are changing so quickly, and so it brings a level of hesitancy that I don't think that the company really needed, and who that heck knows where it's all going from here. It's been a day-to-day drama.

Michelle Kane (06:03):

Yeah, it really has. Well, for me, it seemed to come out of nowhere because I'm not exactly paying attention to that company 24/7, but I thought, wait, what? What? Yeah, and what will that mean for the future of AI? But we have also learned that PRSA has a little something to say about the future of AI, at least in our practice. They have released a document on the ethics of using AI in your writing within our industry of public relations, which is a nice thing to have.

Karen Swim, APR (06:39):

That is a great thing to have.

By the way, again, this could change again, but OpenAI named three interim CEOs in three days. So I'm feeling like if you have solely been relying on ChatGPT, you might want to just add some other tools to the mix because this is not giving stability vibes.

Michelle Kane (07:05):

No, no, it is not. But yeah, if you have been wondering or concerned about the ethical use of AI in your everyday practice or as a whole, we will put the link in our show notes. But please do head over to PRSA.org. It is a 10-page document and just lays out potential risks, ethical challenges. Like I said, we're going to put it in our show notes, but it really does lay out the ethical risks and best practices, which is what we all need, because let's face it, this tool is here to stay in so many ways. And as we've said many times on this podcast, it's best to get to know it, get good at it in an ethical manner, because it's really going to help you to not only stand out, but to be competitive as we move forward.

Karen Swim, APR (08:15):

And shout out to Michelle Egan, who is the 2023 PRSA chair, and Mark Dewar, who is the best man ever, I adore Mark and have had the pleasure of serving with Mark. They headed up this effort, and I know that the people behind this are so thoughtful, and it's cool that it doesn't look like you have to log into PRSA. So even if you are not a PRSA member, you should be able to grab this resource, which I think is a thing we do need to pay attention to. And a nice resource, thank you so much PRSA for providing that, for leaving the way as well as to other organizations who have really taken this seriously and outlined some guidelines for communication professionals.

Michelle Kane (09:12):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And then there's the other blip on the radar of AI, which is pretty significant. I know, Karen, you had discovered there's some developments regarding AI in pitching stories.

Karen Swim, APR (09:30):

Yeah, apparently. So, AI, not human beings, may be reading your pitches, which is a little demoralizing considering how hard we all work to craft those personalized targeted pitches. And so media relations is really becoming very different these days. You even have resources that used to be great for aligning sources and reporters that are now not even being vetted and verified, and I'll go ahead and call them out. It's HARO specifically.

Michelle Kane (10:15):

So that's a thing.

Karen Swim, APR (10:15):

It really has kind of become, I've not really paid attention to HARO's in quite some time because they don't verify the sources. And you do see a lot of content shops and SEO specialists -  nothing wrong with SEO specialists. However, when you are working on behalf of clients, you're looking for something different. You're using HARO as a source to really support your thought leadership efforts. And so some of these publications are not always that, and so you're looking for more editorial. And so that's really, it's just an interesting and somewhat concerning use of AI when you don't have humanity involved in these decisions. But at the same time, I'm seeing a lot of journalists move over to the content side because let's face it, journalists are not really being paid the amount of money that they should for their talent. And I still, I don't know about you, but I still get so excited when I read a piece by a journalist in a publication that really allows them to exercise their craft.

And the writing is so sharp, and sometimes the things are so beautifully written and so deeply investigated and researched that it just still makes me excited. I am also sad that there's not more of that, that is no longer the norm, but it is really exciting when you have journalists at a publication who really get to do what they do best, which is right. Investigate, really present all sides of an issue. I love that. I love it. Whether it's about a societal problem or politics, I just really still enjoy good old fashioned, great writing, and I don't want to see that disappear.

Michelle Kane (12:02):

Right? And it's our loss as a society that is not valued. And I don't know, there's so many moving parts these days and people's lives, we just whizz along. And I don't think people, it's not to say they're ignoring it or that they're making a wrong decision, but guys, well, I know preaching to the choir, but people in general have got to value our journalists and demand it. Demand it. So that's why we say things like, subscribe to your  paper. You may not appreciate it, but then when you realize you don't know what's going on in your community, oh, who used to do that? Oh, that boring old paper that I used to slag off on.

Karen Swim, APR (12:51):

So very true. And journalists are continuing to be under attack, which in 2023, moreso for being truthful, but we need them. We need unbiased professional reporting. But you know what? We also need journalists outside of that realm of really holding us accountable of telling our stories and writing history. They're so good at that. Even I read a journalist tribute to Matthew Perry following his death, and it stuck with me. And I thought, wow, we need people who have this gift, who have this talent, who love this job that they do, who to speak these words in a way that not everyone can speak them. And I don't want to lose that. I'm sorry. And thank God for the Hollywood writers fighting for their right to exist with ai. They're not eliminating ai, but they also were able to bring out their role and fight for their rights and get what they wanted. We can coexist with ai, but I don't want AI to take over.

Michelle Kane (14:13):

Agree, agree. We need to maintain the humanity of it, because if that's lost, what's really, what's the point of our existence? Was it Winston Churchill? Back in World War II. He said, if we don't keep the arts and things alive, then what are we fighting for? So definitely, and we'll put sports writers in there. I’ve got to tell you, sometimes a beautifully written article, like if it's a championship or something, sports writers can make me cry. There is a special romance to sports writing that is often underappreciated.

Karen Swim, APR (15:00):

Completely agree. Completely agree with you. We are not talking about sports broadcasters though, however, who may up their sideline commentary. Can we not talk about that?

Michelle Kane (15:11):

Yes. No, we are not talking about that. No. No, we are not.

Karen Swim, APR (15:17):

We don't talk about Bruno, and we're not talking about sports broadcasters today, but maybe on another day we will address that

Michelle Kane (15:24):

Issue. Agree? Yes. Yes. Keep it real people. You know what? We're going to find out

Karen Swim, APR (15:32):

100%.

Michelle Kane (15:34):

We always, oh my goodness. Well, we wanted to let this digest along with your holiday meals, so we kept it short and sweet today, and we hope you got some value out of this. And if you did, please share it. I was going to see if you did not, what if you did, please do share it around and hit us up at soloprpro.com. Let us know what you want us to talk about. What can we dig into and talk about in a future podcast? But until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.

 

Building a More Inclusive Future: Conversations with Bernadette Davis

There are many challenges faced by DE&I practitioners in today's landscape, including the backlash against DE&I efforts. In this episode, we are joined by an expert in the field of DE&I communications, Bernadette Davis of Bernadette Davis Communications. Listen to hear her valuable insights on how communicators can navigate these challenges, emphasizing the need for inclusivity to be woven into the company's culture.

Stay in touch with Bernadette on LinkedIn and at her website, bdaviscomm.com.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane with VoiceMatters and of course Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. But we are most excited - we love when we have guests – today we have a guest!You're in for a treat today. We welcome Bernadette Davis. Bernadette is an accredited public relations professional and founder of Bernadette Davis Communications. She and her team use their depth of expertise in media relations, executive communications, internal employee communications, diversity, equity and inclusion, and corporate editorial to support clients. So that sounds marvelous and we are so happy, Bernadette, that you're with us today. We're lucky.

Bernadette Davis, APR (00:52):

Thank you for having me.

Michelle Kane (00:55):

No, this is phenomenal. So tell us about your work in DEI communications because it's very important work.

Bernadette Davis, APR (01:01):

Okay, so again, thank you both for having me on. Today I lead a small but mighty team. I started the company though as a solo in 2014 and have transitioned into a boutique agency. And one of our areas of expertise is in DE&I communications. So before I started this agency, the last job that I had, traditional role was at Walt Disney World Resort, which I loved. And I worked on a team, the public affairs team, and we had internal clients. Two of my internal clients at that time were the DE&I team and the supplier diversity team. And while I worked with a lot of clients while I was there, I did learn a lot from those two teams. Little did I realize when I was doing that work as an employee there that 2, 3, 4 years later, I would end up starting an agency and using that expertise to then serve clients.

So that's how that journey started with me, specifically with DE&I communications, bringing that knowledge together with my communications experience. And so my team operates very well as an extension of corporate comms teams because we do have design capabilities, communication strategy, content development. So we can really be almost like their in-house agency as an external partner. And we apply that to DE&I work as well. So for example, when we work with a chief diversity officer or with a communications team that wants some more DE&I experience, we might write for senior level executives who are giving speeches and presentations where they have an inclusive component. We would do design work for them DE&I reports, and even internal and external communication strategy. So how are you talking to your employees about the inclusive work that the company does? And we help to amplify those stories, figure out what are the right stories to, to reach their audiences and even developing that messaging.

Karen Swim, APR (03:11):

Thank you so much for that rich explanation because I think for people that may not be involved in DEI and B work that you may underestimate the amount of activities that get poured into helping companies to really have an inclusive culture because that is, that's a full breadth of public relations services dedicated to a very specific part of the company and then weaving that into the overall messaging as well. So that was really helpful. I'm really interested, some of the things that I'm seeing beyond, not with my own clients, but just when talking with people that do this work is that we've seen this year be a little bit tumultuous, a little bit economically challenged, and we're used to seeing things like marketing and PR being cut back. But it seems like some DEI programs are also being cut back or departments are being merged into other pieces of the company, which is disturbing because there's so much work to do. What trends are you seeing in your work with your clients or just in talking with other colleagues that are also in this space?

Bernadette Davis, APR (04:35):

So Karen, I think first of all, it's interesting, A little bit tumultuous. Yes, more than a little bit and more than a year. The trends that I see, and this is coming from other communicators as well as DE&I, practitioners that I know and some that we've worked with. The landscape around DE&I is very challenging right now. And some people really position it as DE&I work, diversity, equity and inclusion work is under attack. And anytime you have a team or content that's under attack in that way, there can be a concern around that. How do we continue to do this work? So you see things like repositioning the work, naming it differently, for instance, adding the concept of belonging or referring to it as belonging work that's been going on for a couple of years, that transition. So you'll see some teams that are DEI and belonging, bringing it back into HR teams if it was ever pulled out of HR, bringing it back into HR, talking about company culture, which I think is really positive because inclusion should be a part of your company culture.

So I think some of these transitions are helpful because inclusion should not sit off to the side of your business. Your people, leaders, financial leaders, your operations leaders, employees at every part of the company should be thinking about their work and how it can be more inclusive. We also see some companies and organizations that are truly becoming concerned enough that they're likely stopping the work or they want to stop talking about the work that they're doing because they don't want to draw fire over that work. So that's concerning. And I think our role as communicators is to work through that with them and to bring to bear what's messaging that does work, what are the questions we can ask that help us find the right story to tell and to explore what the work really is that we're not making assumptions based on external factors and that we are disusing people of those assumptions. So I think as communicators we do have a more integrated role to play rather than just being task takers to help the organization and help leaders think through the work that they're doing, are you really going to stop doing inclusive work? Because to me, I'm always challenged by that idea because companies don't want to include fewer employees. That's not a smart thing to do.

So those are the things that we're seeing,

Michelle Kane (07:23):

Right, and it just doesn't make sense because it should be at the forefront of how companies cast their vision and develop their values and their culture.

Bernadette Davis, APR (07:36):

Exactly. It's about taking care of the people in your company, taking care of the people you do business with and your customers. And it's also about reputation, risk and opportunity. So when you think about how people perceive DE&I and DE&I work, there was a PEW research study shared earlier this year that said most workers around 56% say focusing on increasing DE&I at work is mainly a good thing. That's more than half of your audience. So you have to be very cautious about not doing the work, not talking about the work. No one wants to lose half their audience.

Michelle Kane (08:21):

No, no, they do not.

Karen Swim, APR (08:24):

I believe it also, let's just call it out. It is good for your bottom line profitability. Often leaders, the language that they speak are dollars and there are so many studies that support that When you have an organization that is inclusive, it's good for the bottom line, inclusivity gives you varying points of view that are really important and makes your business more robust. It leads to greater innovation. There's just so many benefits to it. I'm not somebody who's in that space. I don't think that I could do that day in and day out. However, I do advocate with my clients that DEI is not something that is something that should be off to the side just like ethics. And I believe the DEI is part of ethics as well and I beat that drum all the time. This is something that needs to be woven into your culture and it needs to be not just something that you do as a checklist.

It really needs to be something that is lived period throughout the entire organization for every single human being that works there, full stop. It's sometimes hard to get people to see that. And it's interesting that you mentioned the backlash because it blows my mind that we live in a culture that is so firmly planted in their factions of life. Everything is for or against. It's like if you like the color blue, then there's a group of people that says that you're wrong. And purple is really the color. We fight about everything. And if you believe in inclusivity, which to me is believing in humanity, then somehow you are woke in the wrong way. And you're right, companies can then receive the backlash for being aware that all human beings are not the same, which is such a sad shame. So what are some tips that you can give to other communicators that are faced with this toxicity in our culture and the pressure on practitioners and trying to figure it out? What are some strategies that you've utilized to keep this at the forefront and to keep momentum going?

Bernadette Davis, APR (10:52):

So one of the key strategies and reminders for communicators and for our clients and for your partners is that, again, DE&I shouldn't be separate from your overall business. So are you communicating about policy changes that affect employees? You need to think through those policy changes and what are the inclusive aspects of those, just the policy itself and then how do you communicate that in a way? Does that policy affect your company's approach to accessibility? For example, you should be thinking about that. So it may be a policy that's done by a completely different part of the organization, not DE&I, but all of your employees are going to be impacted. So how do you think about inclusion when it comes to that? So that's the first thing. It should not be separate from the other parts of the business. And you can ask that question and that's a bottom line question because the rest of your business is operating, are you being inclusive?

I'll give an example of something that was released this week. Deloitte released a study with, I think it's associated with the NYU law school, about the concept of covering when people are working to hide parts of their known identity, parts of their identity that are disfavored or seen or perceived as unfavorable. About 60% of the people that they surveyed say that they do some covering at work. And so when you think about that in terms of DE&I and the company, that's a financial issue because if people aren't comfortable at work and they're in an environment where they feel like they need to cover, I would imagine that that plays into them moving around company to company. And we know there's a cost associated with that every time that you need to deal with that. As a business owner, a corporation, there's a cost associated with that.

But if you address that and create an environment where people do not feel like they have to cover as many people, fewer people feel like they have to cover and there's all kinds of covering. So there's covering mothers covering in the workplace, not talking about their children. If they perceive that to be a challenge, people covering based on their faith, based on their orientation, their LGBTQIA identity. And so that's affecting a lot of people. So that's another reminder that it affects a lot of people. So that's another thing to say to business leaders to keep the momentum going. If we aren't going to do this work, how do we address these very real concerns that our employees have brought up and are mentioning and that we need to ask them about? So another way to keep the momentum going is to look at your employee engagement and what your employees are saying in your surveys and making sure that you're asking questions that get to the heart of whether or not inclusion is an opportunity or what your inclusion opportunities are. There probably isn't an organization on the planet that's perfect from an inclusive standpoint. It's a question of whether or not your organization is making the effort, making progress and staying on top of what the people need, your consumers and the people who work there in order to adjust to meet their needs.

Michelle Kane (14:19):

That's so true. And much like Karen said that leaders speak in dollars, they also speak in metrics. Show me the goods, prove it to me. So what kind of metrics do your clients find most impactful to make sure that they stay on the right track with these initiatives,

Bernadette Davis, APR (14:38):

Those employee engagement scores, the surveys, and sometimes even doing internal focus groups to hear what employees are saying. Those are important metrics. So if you want to get data that's to do, and you can build this into your surveys, most companies do survey the employees, they even survey job candidates, build in the questions to find out what their thoughts are around inclusion. And then there are some other information that you can get from employee resource groups, which tend to be very active and vocal and have the pulse of what employees are thinking, who are members of different dimensions. So what do they have to say, how do they respond? And some companies will go to them directly to ask them to engage on that and then it can be a part of a company's overall reputation strategy. So when you look at reputation, however your company is measuring reputation or keeping tabs on that, how does your work on inclusion affect your reputation? How does it affect those measures?

Karen Swim, APR (15:47):

Do you find that companies, we work with some clients that in my agency that deal with neurodivergence and the statistics on that are pretty sad too that employers under count their employees who are neurodivergent because they haven't self-identified for fear of backlash. That's a huge problem because you're handicapping people from really being the best employee because you're not giving them an environment in which to succeed. So do you find that companies pigeonhole, DEI to a specific group or group of people and missed the global picture of what inclusivity really means?

Bernadette Davis, APR (16:34):

I think that's happening less now. I think one of the challenges there, whether they intend to do this or not, is that certain dimensions of diversity are tracked more easily. And so you mentioned self-identification. It's difficult for them to address challenges if everyone doesn't self-identify and you aren't required to self-identify. So they may not really know what their numbers are. But I do think there's an opportunity here. I like to think about things being designed for the best for everyone. So if you think about this, and this will be a very tactile, I guess example, when you think about restaurants and stores and even apartment buildings being designed, we often don't think, in my opinion about design for mobility challenges until we have that mobility challenge. However, many of the things that you can do to make a location more accessible would in fact be better for everyone.

And you don't know that you need it until you need it. But what if every place that you went into, every workplace, every store, every apartment building, every hotel was accessible Because we tend to do that design. There will be just a few hotel rooms in a hotel building that are accessible rooms,

But what if they were all accessible? And so I think that's the kind of thinking that we need. Even if your numbers don't indicate that you have whatever your percentages, you think threshold of employees who are neurodivergent or who have a mental till illness or any other disability, maybe your numbers are not that high, but if you built an environment where you were accessible to everyone, then when they apply for a job, there it is, it's ready for them. And I do notice different things. We dined at a location this weekend and I noticed it was very accessible. I also noticed that I saw different people there. People go where they have access and so if you design it for everyone, everyone will come. That's how I like to think about it.

Karen Swim, APR (19:02):

I love that.

Michelle Kane (19:03):

That's fantastic.

Karen Swim, APR (19:05):

Yeah,

Michelle Kane (19:06):

Yeah. It's such a no brainer too. It's like, well of course we should. My goodness. Why do we keep doing things the hard way? It's just so bizarre to me. So I know we touched on this a little bit as far as the state of DEI, but what do you think is ahead for DEI communications in 2024?

Bernadette Davis, APR (19:29):

I've been looking at that and I've actually been to at least one session talking about DE&I in the current landscape. And I would say the first thing is to stay the course

Michelle Kane (19:41):

Good.

Bernadette Davis, APR (19:42):

Turning it on and off like a faucet doesn't make sense and people see that, employees see that job candidates see that even the organizations you work with see that decide that you're going to do the work and do the work for communicators. I think it's an opportunity for us to continue to strengthen our collaboration with DE&I practitioners who are our colleagues and with the organizations that do this work. I think communications professionals have room to grow in terms of learning this work and it really has the opportunity to influence all of your communications content and tactics. So continue to build those relationships so that we can be partners and even advocates for this work. And then I think we are often making the case for things when we are telling a client or a partner, Hey, we really think this is the right strategy and here's why.

Just as we would pull research, look at existing coverage and trending topics when we're talking about other work, do the same for DE&I and bring those statistics to the table just so that whatever the decision makers decide, we can't control for that outcome, but at least we will know that we have presented what's available in terms of the research, the facts, what people's perspectives are. So if a client or an organization that you're working with decides, we see that Gen Z almost 30% identifies as a member of the L-G-B-T-Q-I-A community and another, I think it's 20 to 30% of their generation advocates for their friends and family in that community. So now we're looking at about 60% of the generation that cares about this topic and is very passionate about it. If that's not something your company or organization wants to engage in, that's fine, but do understand what you're talking about for today and for the future.

Michelle Kane (21:49):

So true. That is so true and so important too. Incredibly important.

Karen Swim, APR (21:56):

Completely agree. I know that you are an expert in not only doing the work but reporting on the work. So I want to hear about what you're doing in terms of reporting your efforts and what tips you might have as we all are starting our year in reports and sharing with clients those details.

Bernadette Davis, APR (22:19):

Thank you. This is exactly the time of year where people are either writing their DE&I reports or starting to pull that information together from all of the work they've done in the previous year. We've worked with multiple clients where we work with them either on the strategy and the outline for their report. Sometimes we write the entire report and do the design as well. So we've touched all facets of that process right now. I think it's considering your audiences spending more time thinking about the audiences. A lot of DE&I reports tend to be longer and I don't think I know, we know we see this, that people don't read those longer documents the way they might have in the past. So I think thinking through your audiences and how do you create a report document where you can pull out what you need for audiences and that it's a useful document for your team.

I think that's one of the best pieces of advice that we can provide. Thinking about what part of this is attractive to job candidates, what part of this do we need to share with external stakeholders? What part of this matters to employees? And using that as a guideline for how you develop the report and making it very concise. We look at about 40 different DE&I reports from companies every year for our edification and we pull that a report around the insights and trends that we get from that. And so that's a benchmarking study we've done two years now and share with clients and that really helps us see what's trending with reports and how they're changing. And that can be something very helpful as we do this work and we're able to share that with potential clients and clients and they've all found it very useful.

Karen Swim, APR (24:08):

That sounds like an amazing report. Are those insights something that you package up and offer to other colleagues as well or is that something that you're thinking about doing? Because that sounds amazing.

Michelle Kane (24:22):

Yeah,

Bernadette Davis, APR (24:23):

Every year we do share it out and we are getting ready to do our end of year newsletter, so we'll be sharing it out in that newsletter. And I think I've shared it in the past with solos in the member group, but definitely can do that this year. It's just a great way when you have to do a report like this, whether it's ACSR DE&I report, you know what we're going to do? We're going to go look at five in our industry, five more from another industry so that we have that as benchmarking and we've done a lot of that legwork.

Michelle Kane (24:52):

Oh, that's wonderful. So I know we all want to know where can we find you? How can solos look you up so they can make sure that that might hit their inbox?

Bernadette Davis, APR (25:02):

Thank you. The best way is our website baviscomm.com. So that's bdaviscomm.com. And I'm very available on LinkedIn and our company page - bdaviscomm.com - is very active there. We have a great team that keeps us in front of people.

Michelle Kane (25:19):

Fantastic. And there was one thing you said at the start of our conversation was that the work that you were doing at Disney prepared you for the work that you do as a solo. And I think that is such a commonality amongst us that we, many of us who are solos didn't really set out to be solos necessarily, but we can all look back and say, oh, I served in this specific role because that prepared me to be able to be a solo, right? I mean that

Bernadette Davis, APR (25:52):

Exactly. I started my career as a newspaper reporter, print newspaper. I ended up working on a website that was in support of an ABC affiliate in Orlando in the early two thousands. So web development, I worked PR for an ad agency, I did communications for an HBCU law school. So all of those pieces, and never along that path did I think, oh, this will be helpful when I start my own business. But it all worked out just fine. This is the beginning of our 10th year in operation.

Michelle Kane (26:26):

That's fantastic!

Karen Swim, APR (26:27):

Congratulations.

 

Bernadette Davis, APR

Yes, thank you.

Karen Swim, APR (26:30):

And I do want to remind our listeners that we will have Bernadette's information in the show notes and I encourage you to follow her because the content that you share publicly is so phenomenal. You're such a superstar. So for people like you who not only do the work but live it externally because you advocate for inclusion in everything you do, it's not just client work that you do, this is who you are. And I'm always inspired by that and I look to people like yourself to stay abreast of the things that I should know. But I applaud you. I mean, I can't say this enough. I believe that this work is so hard. It can be really hard. It can really drain you, particularly when you are a person of color and you're having to remove your biases and you're having to step into this role of educating people sometimes to the point of frustration. So thank you so much for hanging in there for doing the work and shining the light for the rest of us. I can't say enough good things about you. I'm just super thankful that you came here today and talked to us about this and I'm looking forward to seeing your report. That is just such a fantastic resource and we appreciate you, Bernadette.

Michelle Kane (27:53):

We do. We really do.

Bernadette Davis, APR (27:54):

It's thank you. I've been a long time member of Solo PR, many people, and it's been so helpful in building my business in the quiet times when it was just me and I didn't know what I was doing. So many things that I do, I'm like, yeah, someone in solo PR said, use this tool. I'm using it. So the feeling is absolutely mutual.

Michelle Kane (28:18):

Oh, that's wonderful. We are lucky to know you, Bernadette. We are. Thank you so much for spending this time with us today and we hope to do it again soon. To our listeners, again, please connect with Bernadette on LinkedIn if you found this episode of value, and of course you did, come on now. Please do share it around. And if you have any questions or comments, hit us up at solopro.com. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.

 

 

Where Do We Go from Here? Social Media for 2024

The social media landscape has changed drastically over the course of this year. What does that mean for our clients as we plan for 2024?

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:03):

Thank you for joining us for another episode of That's Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my ever steady co-host, Karen Swim with Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen. How are you doing today?

Karen Swim, APR (00:21):

Hey, Michelle. I am very chilly, which is why I am wearing my comfy little coat during this broadcast because we're in the thirties here in Michigan, but other than that, good. How are you doing today?

Michelle Kane (00:37):

I am doing well. We are not quite that chilly here in the Philly burbs, but there's that beautiful fall crispness in the air that even though I'm not thrilled about the temperature plunges to come, I will take it. It adds a little snap to or step.

Karen Swim, APR (00:56):

We're just going to call this fall crisp with a little bit of rain. That's what we're going to call it. We're going to call it fall crisp because it's still technically fall, and I am determined to enjoy fall until the very last day. I refuse to accept that it's over because it's not technical.

Michelle Kane (01:18):

No, no. In fact, I saw a hysterical Instagram reel from Michelle Stafford. She's a soap actress, Nina General Hospital, everyone. But the whole point of the reel was that her young son was very disturbed that we were skipping Thanksgiving. We were hopping right from Halloween to Christmas, and you hear him in the backseat of her car going, “Where's Thanksgiving?” And so they go to Home Goods and they're shopping around and they found fall on a clearance table and the little boy says, “The boss here mustn't do Thanksgiving.”

Karen Swim, APR (01:59):

That is adorable and so sad. Help the children do not just push you all to the side. Do not push Thanksgiving away. I mean, listen, no matter what you feel about the pilgrims. Let's not rush it to Christmas.

Michelle Kane (02:15):

No, let's let our Thanksgiving meal digest properly. We don't want to get acid reflux as we hurl into the holidays. But she did end up buying some holiday items and she said, “I'm not proud.” And he goes, “I'm not proud either.” So check out Michelle Stafford's Instagram. It's very funny and not that we want to rush things, but speaking of social media and how fun it can be and how it can still be effective today, we're going to go on a little bit about social media planning for 2024. It's been a while since we stopped to sort of take stock and see what's going on out there. Where are our clients' audiences spending their time, what is still worth our time to use it as organizations and corporations? So we're going to talk about that a little bit.

Karen Swim, APR (03:09):

Yeah, honestly, Michelle, it's amazing to me that in this past 10 months how dramatically the social media landscape has changed, and maybe it's just me, but I feel like the changes have been as rapid as when social media really started to take off many, many years ago. I've not seen this dramatic of a shift in such a short period of time, all driven of course by the social media site formerly known as Twitter. It really just led to a deluge of changes and it's definitely well worth it to take a hard look at strategies and understand audit for your audiences again and make decisions about how you advise your clients or how you as a brand advise your company on what to do in the coming year.

Michelle Kane (04:07):

Yeah, that's so true, especially with regard to that channel. I know many have full on abandoned it for very good reasons because just of who has the hate speech and the things that have been allowed to take place. I mean, I still do find it a fair resource for journalists that are still hanging in there and trying to, it's for better or for worse, still a place where you might find up-to-date information. With yesterday being election day, it certainly wasn't like the good old days, but I thought, oh, okay, I can still get up to the moment information. But for the rest of it, if I were advising a client, a fresh new client today about using it, I would not, because it's almost like when you take your clients to lunch, do you want to take them to a nice place or a place with questionable actors?

Karen Swim, APR (05:01):

Yeah, it's really, I thought in all of the movement and all of the things that have happened on X this year, I was certain at some points that it would be gone by now. I really thought it would be gone or that it would have lost every shred of usefulness. Now, for some people, it really has. The interesting thing to me is that there were some media companies that made a wholesale decision that we refuse to be on this platform and support the ethics and the morals that are coming from the top, from the leadership and the tone and the environment and how it is has just become a bastion of not only hate speech but mis- and disinformation.

But I have found, as you said, that there are still many journalists who continue to use the platform. So for communicators, it is probably worthwhile depending on the reporters that you interact with, to at least keep your eye on your reporters there. It doesn't mean that you have to spend time on the platform. Definitely doesn't mean that you have to buy a blue check mark, none of those things, but as long as you have free access to the platform, there are journalists that very much engage there, which is helpful for our work, for my own clients across the board, many of them use it, but it's more of a broadcast channel. They just broadcast stuff out.

Some of them have, many people have penned posts that have a post, and then it talks about the other places that you can find them, but they just use it as a broadcast channel, not as an interactive channel. I think the other thing though, and Michelle, I'd love to hear your take on this, is that it feels like the tone of all of the channels has changed. So at one point where you had multiple channels for quote unquote business, I feel like there are some channels have become much more personalized. For me, Threads is not really a business channel. I see where it could be, but it really feels more of a take off your blazer, sit down and really connect with people around personal interest and your personal branding. Whereas LinkedIn has risen from the ashes in some ways to become the de facto business channel that all of my clients care about. That's where they're spending their money. Are you seeing the same thing?

Michelle Kane (07:43):

Yes. And I wonder if that's because Threads feels more like a, or is a derivative of Instagram or it's more aligned with Instagram. Now I have clients who use Instagram of course, being the retail facing the public facing. But even so there's a different vibe and a tone on Instagram. It's always been more casual. It feels unnatural if you're scrolling through your feed of Instagram and something very formal comes in. No, so that makes sense. And it is nice to see LinkedIn swaying away from what felt like a, I don't know, like a stilted Facebook light or something. I was like, no, no, no, I don't come here for this. I come here for business information to get to know colleagues better, of course. But to stay in that professional lane I think is a good thing that that is happening there.

Karen Swim, APR (08:42):

And algorithmic changes are also impacting the work that we do. So it has become more challenging because even if your audience is there, you're not guaranteed to reach them organically. So I think as we really evaluate how to advise clients in the coming year, we really want to make sure that we have a seat at the table to talk about those paid models as well. What's the budget for paid in the coming year? And make some recommendations about slices of the pie and how that should be allocated to some PR efforts as well. Don't leave yourself out of that paid discussion because there are things that as PR professionals, and I just had this discussion with a client yesterday where we want to use every slice, every piece of the pie, including paid. So we're making recommendations on that budget as well. So don't forget to do that because as you said, Instagram still remains as of today a channel where brands can engage, especially with consumer facing, brands can engage their audiences and get their attention, but you obviously can't be all buttoned up. It has to be visually appealing, you have to share information. So far it seems like people are still using influencers, although there's sort of a shift away from that word and the influencers, and then the Instagram algorithm has changed. It's made it harder to view people and they keep changing. So I mean these all factor into our decisions of where do we tell our clients to spend their time and research? If you're b2b, it's LinkedIn and you can pretty much close your eyes to everything else if you choose to.

Michelle Kane (10:35):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and even from the beginning of using social media for business, I've always advised clients to be discerning, you don't have to be everywhere. Just make sure that way you are, you're doing it as best you can with what you have. And that's different things to different people. And there are some clients where I can just say, again, thinking more of the consumer facing look, if your budget is X and you just have one special you want to put out on Facebook, then fine. We put a fair chunk of money that makes sense behind that and make sure the people that you want to see it, see it. Even though certainly Facebook ad buying has changed so much and it's definitely not as targeted as it used to be. You can still get there. But I think the bottom line too is if you want to be seen, you have to pay you

Karen Swim, APR (11:28):

So true. And so then drives into having those hard conversations with your clients about their ethical considerations as well. Because let's face it, a lot of people left Facebook in droves because there are concerns around privacy, their concerns about the company's ethics, the missile and disinformation, understandable. I am not going to slam anybody for making those decisions. Many people left X for the same exact reason, and Facebook, Instagram and threads are also meta. It's the same company. So again, we're left with view choices. I know that there are many other emerging apps like Blue Sky and Spill,

But again, what's happened is that this is so divided. Our publics, they're not en masse in one place anymore as it was in the past. And then you also as a company have to make these decisions about what really is right for your business. Where are the right places to show up and who do you really want to spend money with? For me, this brings home the point that we, communicators marketers have always said from day one, do not put all of your eggs into a basket that is owned by somebody else. This is why your websites, your email marketing strategies still need to be strong and you need to be driving place people to your home rather than always hosting at somebody else's house basically.

Michelle Kane (13:11):

I say that all the time, and I think even more so these days. Social media is certainly a capable tool for some things, but it's not as much in the forefront as it used to be. I encourage all of us to think about our clients and the way that we're helping them get known and get seen and get their stories told is to just rethink all of that. Because what is the main thing we're trying to do? We're trying to get their stories told. And that could be a literal story or it could be your oil change special of the month. Where can that be seen? And that's not always primarily social media. I think. I mean, I know my clients, a lot of companies do use their email marketing in a robust way, but I think there are also a fair amount of companies out there who are not using it in the way they used to. And I could venture to guess why is it because so many of us when we receive the emails, we're like, ah, delete, delete, delete, delete. But that's okay. I mean, again, I say this all the time to my clients. Your perfect ideal customer has to be ready for you to engage. So you may hit them with a message 20 times and the 21st time is the time that particular person is ready. The beautiful thing is there are so many people out there that you're talking to. It's,

Karen Swim, APR (14:52):

It's funny that you said that because for me, I'm one of those people who email is, it's just a constant annoyance as it is for everyone in the communication industry. And for many of us who lit our work is integrally tied to email as a communication channel. But I was having a conversation with somebody that I know the other day who was checking their email and he was like, oh, I have eight emails and just in the past, that's your 10 minute volume, right? It's like eight. And he was actually excited about getting an email from a brand that he had bought from and really liked the product and was excited to get the email about the sell. So again, I think you're right, Michelle, that we have to remember to that what we're sick of and what seems so commonplace to us, because it's our job from Inside View, we have to really put ourselves in the shoes of our public and understand maybe they're not overwhelmed with emails because that's not part of their day-to-day job, and they're not getting 22,000 emails in their inbox. Maybe they have five and maybe they're really happy to receive information from brands that they support, that they learn from. And so don't shy away from a toll just because in your mind you're over it, you're sick of it because not everybody is in that same space.

Michelle Kane (16:29):

We have to check ourselves and our jaded notions. And also too, I mean, hey, if check read industry blogs and make sure, because every once in a while, say maybe a couple times a year, I check and say, okay, is email still a very good tried and true way? And sure enough, it is.

Karen Swim, APR (16:55):

I think it's also important for brands to going into 2024 to be realistic not only in where you are on a social media platform, but what your goal is there. Because for so many years in the early days, we talked about community, community engagement, engagement, engagement. It's all about building a community. Can we be really honest? You're not going to build community around your toilet paper. You're just a topic that is really going to draw people that are so passionate about your brand of toilet paper that it's going to form a community. But is it to continue to keep your brand name in front of people as they're making buying decisions? Are there other things that you can expand into as a brand? Are there things that you support? So if you're a toilet paper brand, and can you remind people about prostate screenings? Are there things that are adjacent that you can share information about? I, so I think it's very important to re-look at your strategy, and sometimes PR professionals are not managing the day-to-Day social media, but we can at least educate and collaborate on the content that's going forward to help those teams to think about why are you really here and what are the goals and what are the expectations? Because the strategies really have changed. In my mind, they have, it's not because the tools have changed. And so I think it is important to take a fresh look at it as I'm sure that we're doing every year, but I feel like this year is more important than ever, and keeping in mind that we are entering election year, so that means a lot of noise. It means a lot of mis- and mal- and disinformation. Let's just face it. On top of the studies, there was a Pew study that just showed that people are turning away from the news in droves in that demographic, particularly of 30 to 49 years old. So if your publics factor into that, that's another thing that you need to weigh as a professional. Not that, oh my God, no one's paying attention, so we shouldn't do earned media. But what's the most effective way to leverage earned media to reach an audience that's become quite jaded about anything that comes out of a news organization?

Michelle Kane (19:26):

Yeah, and I love that you bring up the toilet paper idea of prostate cancer screenings. I mean, that really answers just the core. What's going to grab someone that they core or before they can outthink it of, oh, right, my health, how to make my day better, how to make my life better, how can I save money? Those kinds of narratives that really help someone in their day to day I think is a great place to focus on as we move into 2024. How can you be, not a partner, but just a key connection in someone's life, which is not quite the same as like you said at the outside of social. It's like, let's build a community. We thought that might happen, and then we realized what,

Karen Swim, APR (20:21):

Yeah, nobody's rallying it. I got an email today from Hiscock Insurance, shout out to Hiscock, which many of our solos utilize, and there was an article in their newsletter about reducing business expenses. And I clicked right through and I read that entire article. And again, this is somebody that provides insurance, but this was, they're in the business of supporting business owners. And everything in the newsletter was really helpful, but this was a topic that immediately caught my eye because we're all looking for ways to stretch our dollars as business people with everything going up so high. This was so timely, and it's smart. I don't get a ton of emails from them, but it was one that as I'm going through my 1700 emails, I actually did click through. I read this article, I remembered it, and now I'm talking about them on the podcast here. So don't diminish the value of showing up where people live on your, it's your list. No one can take that away from you using the things that you really do own and have a little bit more control of. And then maybe using social media as a way to amplify or to further drive people to your own properties.

Michelle Kane (21:41):

Exactly. I mean, I think that continues to be the name of the game, and I think sometimes we can move away from that. We can drift, but I think honing back on that and really telling what's your story, what do you need people to know and being helpful is still the way to go. So while we hope that we've been of help to you today with this bit of content that we are amplifying through our channels, and we hope that if it is helpful that you amplify it through your channels, please do share this around. We would really, really appreciate that. And if you have any suggestions or feedback, hit us up at solopro.com. And until next time, thank you for joining us on That Solo Life.

 

When Good Intentions Go Wrong

Don't let good intentions lead to unintended consequences in your PR efforts. In this episode, we discuss a recent well-meaning attempt by a CEO to address negative press that ended up creating more problems for the company. We highlight the dangers of speaking without consulting expert counsel and the need for CEOs to consider the impact of their words on both internal and external audiences.

Read the article in TechCrunch: Carta’s CEO reaches out to customers about bad press, alerting them to bad press.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:17):

Thank you for joining us on this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters, and as always, my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you on this fabulous Monday?

Karen Swim, APR (00:38):

Hey, Michelle. I'm doing great. In spite of the major temperature drop, it's freezing cold, but it's okay. I'm good. I'm so good having a great moment. How are you?

Michelle Kane (00:49):

I'm well, thanks. Yeah, the fall crisp is finally arriving. It's a little gloomy today, but that's okay. Our morning was actually brightened up by this news from Carta. It was just a little astonishing. I think the theme of today would be CEOs who think they're helping, but they're also not. They're just not. This is why you have us. You might think that we're just fluffy, but we're not. PR pros are essential to your business.

Karen Swim, APR (01:22):

There could not have been a better ringing endorsement of why you should hire professionals to do your communications. I mean, I really just want to take this story and make copies of it and send it to every company in America and say, if you wondered why and as you're looking at your 2024 budgets, you're good reason to keep PR people on your team.

Michelle Kane (01:54):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's definitely a case of you may be the most well-meaning person in the world, however,

Karen Swim, APR (02:05):

So

Michelle Kane (02:06):

Set it up because you flagged this story for us. What's the lowdown of what exactly happened?

Karen Swim, APR (02:12):

So here's what happened. So Carta is a tech company in the Bay Area and the CEO Henry Ward, who seems like a lovely person, by the way, wrote a post about a piece of negative press that no one had seen. So of course no one had seen it. It was going to be a non-thing until he wrote a post about it and then went into great detail into all of their negative press in addition to just coming off really bad. So it's just a highlight of what happens when a CEO takes matters into his own hands. So he published a post of a long post that he had sent out to his employees, and again, keep in mind no one had seen the story, but then when the CEO comes out and puts something out, and his reason for putting this out is to help other CEOs who might be enduring the same thing.

All kinds of attention was created around the story that no one would've seen had he kept his mouth shut. So it went out there and I saw it in Mary Ann's TechCrunch newsletter, and then there was another story, and then it was a roundup, and then here we are on a Monday morning talking about it, not because we want to pile on this poor CEO who got it wrong, but because it's a great opportunity to share again what you really should not do and kind of work through what he was thinking and the many ways it all went bad for him.

Michelle Kane (03:46):

So step one is when you have the notion of writing a screed like this is to check with your comms team so they can weigh in on whether or not it's a good idea because we understand, I mean, who doesn't want to defend themselves? That's the first urge of, well, no, we didn't because in this litany of things, but as you said, this article that really no one had seen, it's got a whole new life now and now I'm sure most everyone in his realm has seen it, and it's just like that commercial where the liquid spills and you're going go

Karen Swim, APR (04:28):

Most definitely, and it's interesting. Here's the message that I would send to CEOs. We just had a similar situation in my real life work like this happend. It wasn't sexual abuse allegations or anything like that, but it was a potential crisis situation. Obviously, we were looped in immediately when we knew that this could be a situation. So we did what everybody does. We had a crisis plan around this particular thing. We work through create with the client, helping them to draft a statement that could be sent out to the media in the event that this news did become public, and we asked him to please share this with legal, to share it with the appropriate people so that it got blessed and it was ready to go in advance. The news did get out, a reporter did contact us. We were able to respond immediately. Not with no comment, not with, we can't talk about this, but with the natural statement. It turned out to be a great story. That was exactly how we would've wanted this to play out, and I think with CEOs, this man sounds like he was leading with his heart.

Michelle Kane (05:41):

Oh, sure.

Karen Swim, APR (05:41):

It's a terrible idea in business in general for lots of decisions because you've got to put on your professional hat. You have to think about your audience, and you have to understand that talking to the public is not talking to your best or talking to your family. There's so many ways that this can go wrong and did, and so he spoke from his heart, and it does sound like he's a decent human being, but he picked up a shovel and dug a grave that was deep enough for 20 bodies to fit into it. It just got worse and worse and worse and worse.

Michelle Kane (06:19):

Yeah. Yeah. That's not the way to start your week, let alone do at all. And looking at the flip side of this, we're not being disingenuous. I mean, you certainly don't want to hide things, but at the same time, my goodness, you can just reveal information that just really does not need to go public. And even if and when it does, like you say, we need to plan around that, plan for it. Consider all the audiences, all the ways that this will impact you, your company, your people. There's just so much that goes into it Now, he could very well have written this, gotten it all out of his system, and then looped in his team for good counsel and to just talk him through it, because I do understand, I mean, especially in that world, your team can feel like family and you can feel a bit of comfort, and you're just so wrapped up in the world of the day-to-day of your company. So I get it. I get how this could happen just from the other side of this. Yeah, just please involve your communications team members. Just do it. I don't care how much you think you don't need to or how much you think that this line item is a waste of money. We just have these people around telling us where to put dots and dashes. No, it's so much more than that. We're your champions.

Karen Swim, APR (07:52):

He vomited on his internal people as well. I mean, it really was. It was just like he vomited words all over everybody and he really, I don't know how his internal people reacted, but I would also say that in the same way that attorneys advise, you don't just, yes, we know the facts and we know that when you are in a situation where you're defending yourself, there's that human instinct to want to have your say, but you have to be strategic about it. You have to be smart about it. And as a CEO, I think that there are some things that you share and some things that you don't share, and not because you're lying to people, but there's a way that you frame things and you have to take a step back and not think of yourself and just wanting the information off of your chest, but you also have to protect your people. So in my mind, here's one of the downsides that I see. You brought attention to negative information. You shared that internally and externally, which then you also brought up all of the other negative things when people may not be adding it up as you do, because what happens is that sometimes something bad happens and people forget about it, it goes away, but you just right in front of your team too, reminded them of all of the negative press, and you said that and you apologized for it.

I'm so sorry. I know you didn't sign up for all of this negative press. Why would you paint that picture of pessimism to your team? It was unintentional. I know he was attempting to comfort them and to say, I'm so sorry. I know you didn't sign up for this, but they're not really bearing the weight of this either. You are bearing the weight of it, and now you dropped it at your team members’ feet. Because I've worked for companies where there has been negative press because that's just been the job. That's been the job that we're in. It didn't make me feel differently about the company. What I wanted to hear from them is not a rehashing of negative news, but I wanted to continue to see leadership, and I wanted to continue to see the integrity because what was important to me was being able to trust my leaders and be mentored by them and understand that they truly care for me. That didn't mean rehashing negative scenarios, and so I think he could use some help in that area. It sounds like they may not have internal comms people or any PR people on their team, because I know that professional communicators would've never allowed either of those scenarios to happen internally or externally.

Michelle Kane (10:32):

I agree. I agree. And doesn't it really point to a bit of a trend in that arena of, well, we don't need PR people like well, well, you do. You really do. I mean, trust us, we're not, I mean, we know our listeners know this, but for those outside of our industry, we're not just making up this job because it's fun to pretend. We realize, and as many of our clients realize, we provide an essential role of looking out for you and your best interests and helping you present yourself in the best way possible to your publics.

Karen Swim, APR (11:07):

I agree. I would say another big mistake that he made, and this is a myth that I believe many, many, many founders carry and many organizations carry in his public post. Essentially, it sounded like he was bashing the media and he painted them all with this broad brush of negativity and made everybody sound like they were an exposé reporter that could not be further from the truth. By and large journalists, and I'm talking real journalists. I'm not saying every Joe America with a blog of their own, that's not necessarily a journalist. Well, some journalists definitely have their own thing. Journalists care about reporting facts. We all have inherent biases, but some of us are trained to understand that we have those biases, and to learn how to communicate with an awareness of that and still be balanced. It was the most horrific statement, and it was really unfair because the one thing that PR people fight for and we all agree on is that we believe in a free press.

We need a free press. He even brought up John and the Theranos reporting and said that after he won this Pulitzer Prize for his work, that it ushered in an era of basically gotcha journalism in the tech world that also could not be further from the truth. What John did was a public service. He reported on a company that had lives at stake. These were people that were relying on laboratory testing for diagnoses. This was an important story. I believe that it won an award because it was great reporting. He took a deep dive. He hung in there. This was not to say gotcha to the tech industry and expose every little dirty secret, but let's be clear, the tech industry has been notoriously horrible culture. I've experienced it myself. I know that many people out there have had personal experiences, and so any reporting that's done that talks about a company culture and things that go wrong, it's not because reporters are trying to win awards or because they're out to get you. They're doing their jobs.

Michelle Kane (13:44):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They're just doing their due diligence, seeking the truth in a way that will benefit all of us. It's just, yeah, I mean, the press over the years has gotten a bad rap, and especially, it's been quite intense as we all know these past several years. And yeah, that's very disheartening, especially when that same company might like the press to pay attention to them for the positive things they do in the future, and how will this impact that? I'm not saying the press is vindictive, they're not, but it's just like, oh, well, I don't know how we're going to be portrayed if we cover you. So…

Karen Swim, APR (14:27):

100% agree. I mean, he really did get that wrong, and by trying to be his own press agent in this letter, he talked about some past allegations of racism, misogynism, and sexual harassment, and there were a couple of executives, I guess, that were fired, and he brought that up again, and he said that our mistake wasn't in firing them, it was in hiring them at all. Again, it doesn't paint your company in a positive light. And I mean, if Henry ever hears this podcast, please understand that we are not saying that you are a terrible person. We are saying that you made a mistake in the way that you handled it, and so in the same way that you found it instructed in your posts because you thought that it would help CEOs, we are hoping that CEOs will listen to this podcast, and companies will listen to this podcast and understand that good intention should not drive your PR or your leadership decisions. That was a huge misstep, and we're only talking about this because it is public. We would never be talking about this had it never been made public.

Michelle Kane (15:42):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We come at this from purely helpful motives because we want, Hey, we want everyone to do well. And if that was something that you needed to get out of your system, that's great, do it. But it's the old adage of write the letter, don't send it.

Karen Swim, APR (16:04):

I've done that a million times. It's great therapy. Writing for me just helps to get it out there, so I'll do my thing, I'll rant. I'll get it all out, but it'll never see the daylight because it's an exercise for me. And again, it's so important to draw that line, and I don't think that every human being, that's not a skillset that we all possess, and that's okay. It does not make you a less than worthy human being or leader. It just means that there are professionals that can help you see the potholes that you wouldn't even know to look for. And so again, here is who I believe. I think I've said this over and over, to be a really good man who had really good intentions, but in speaking without expert counsel, he really did himself and his company a disservice. And to be honest, I guess one thing is that I didn't really think I had heard of Carta. Maybe I heard of them, but wasn't real aware of them, but I probably won't forget their name again. So good job in amplifying your brand name.

Michelle Kane (17:15):

Oh my gosh. Well, we know now, and we hope you found value in this time together today. CEOs, hang in there, give us all a call. Make sure you have a comms pro at the ready, because honestly, it will do you a world of good. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.

Communicating Clearly in Uncertainty

Atrocities against innocents in the Middle East. Another mass shooting in the U.S. Every day, something new to absorb and process. Now more than ever, PR pros need to lead the way in communicating clearly in all of this uncertainty.

 

Read Hope and the Hard Things on the Solo PR Pro blog.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:17):

Thank you for joining us for another episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my ever wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen. How are you doing today?

Karen Swim, APR (00:36):

Hi, apparently Michelle, I'm doing better than you. You are soldiering through in spite of a major allergy attack here.

Michelle Kane (00:46):

Yay. This is what I get for peopling. Yeah, it happens. It happens. You get around the wrong things. That just anger your sinuses. And here we are. So it's supremely annoying, but I'll put it up against, there are unfortunately real problems in the world, so I'll soldier on. There's no joy in Mudville. Our Phillies are out of it, but I thank them for a wonderful ride and go, Rangers.

Karen Swim, APR (01:16):                                                 

In the past three years, I think that we've all learned that because the world has continuously been on fire, literally, and it's just been one thing after another. So I think that we've learned how to both mourn and still have joy because you cannot live in despair. You just cannot. So there are real things happening in the world, but we do try to find some space for laughter, for joy, for friends and loved ones and having lighter moments. And today we have a pretty serious topic to talk about, but we hope to inflect it with a little bit of hope for all of you out there. So let's dig into it.

Michelle Kane (02:01):

Let's do it. Yes. I mean, certainly with the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and I know conflict is a mild word, there's been a lot of horrific scenes taking place in the name of power in just thousands of years of animosity. We know that. And as communicators, our eyes and ears are attuned to the messaging that's out there. There's a lot of propaganda. There is a lot of hurt feelings on both the Jewish and Muslim, I hate to say sides, but amongst people of, Hey, why aren't you standing up for us? Why aren't you standing up for us? And it's just, again, as with anything we've seen, I hate to say in recent years because I know we can go back hundreds of years and point out misinformation and propaganda, but it just seems, especially with the onset of our digital world, the waters are so incredibly muddy and murky. I mean, one thing we know is true outright murdering innocents is never right. Let's start there.

Karen Swim, APR (03:16):

Let's start there. And I always think about, there's this newsletter that I subscribed to and it's called 1440, and their tagline is “Facts Without Motives.” And they share just the facts. So all the headlines, all the news, unbiased reporting, and I love reading it because it is a good reminder as a communicator that is also my job. Facts without motives, whatever your personal feelings are about politics, what's going on in the world, the wars, who's right, who's wrong as communicators, we have to understand that we do serve diverse audiences and that our communication does need to be factual and we cannot inflict our personal opinions and biases upon our communications. And so we've seen a lot of missteps that have been hurtful, but I also am encouraged by the public relation pros who have stepped up and who have taken the rhetoric out of it all and said, we focus on human life, period does not matter because it's very troubling to me that there have been communications put out by organizations that have actually incited and incentivized hatred against any group, against Muslims, against the Jewish community.

This is horrific to me. It pains me. And it's so hard when you see that because number one, in the United States of America, there are so many different religions. You cannot, cannot paint everyone with the same brush. Every Muslim is not a terrorist. Have we not learned one single thing from 9/11? These are our neighbors, these are our colleagues, these are our friends. They're often our family members. Please value human beings and human life. Yes, there's a time and a place for political activism. Yes, there's a time and a place to debate how you feel about this, but it is not as a professional communicator. And I would encourage you to counsel your clients and the organizations that you serve that when putting out statements, if you put out a statement that supports one side or the other, you are eliminating a big swath of your audience. You have to hold space for everyone because I think that we can all agree that decapitating babies is not okay in anyone's book, holding people hostage and torturing them, murdering families who are just families. They're not part of a terrorist organization. I cannot personally stand behind that. But as a human being, I think that we can all agree on those facts, that none of this is okay, and that we have to be careful and inclusive in our messaging that we're not going too far to either side.

Michelle Kane (06:28):

And it's the old adage until you walk a mile in someone's shoes, because the way that that attack was done was I'm sure intentional to trigger the generations-old feeling in the bones. I forget the title, but there's an Irish history book called, I think it's called The Stories in Our Bones, and all of us, all of our people groups, we have those stories of, yeah. So there are certain things when they happen to other people groups, it does trigger something of, yeah, no, that's not right. And just to empathize, because it is sad. Our Jewish friends, our Muslim friends are going through this. We're going about our day. I'm thinking, am I going to have tuna fish for lunch? I'm not worried about stepping outside of my house today. And whether some listeners might think, oh, what's the big deal? Well, it is a big deal, and we just have to be cogniscent of that from a professional perspective. Hey, where's our audience sitting today? Especially if you're working in the social media sphere, if you're creating content, not that you have to be super, super intentive. I'm not saying that, oh, you need to create content about this. Don't take that the wrong way. Sorry, my allergy head is spinning.

But just be conscious of what's happening. And I think that's with anything that's if, let's say you're a small town and there's a big fire that's affected a lot of people, we're just reminding ourselves foremost and all of our fellow communicators to just keep this in mind. And if you are working with a client that feels compelled to issue some kind of statement, please know that most of our clients don't need to do that. But if you do feel compelled to do so, make sure you really, not only you factually check it, but you also do a good gut check.

Karen Swim, APR (08:29):

Yeah, I mean, that goes back for me, always, always in companies, in every single action should be aligning with their mission, vision, and values. And this is where living that daily from the basement to the boardroom becomes so important. It is a foundation for ethical practices and integrity. It should be important to organizations, and you should definitely allow that to guide you as you craft statements. And as you said, it is really important if you do not have to make a statement. But I understand that with this conflict, it really does impact your employees in the PR world. It affects the people that we work with, the companies, the media. This is on the hearts and minds of everyone. But we have to be careful too as we speak out about these things because there are many other conflicts globally that are impacting populations that are often ignored. It's interesting because I know that there are many people that use the word woke as a political weapon

And regular people. Americans seem to have fatigue with feeling like they have to watch what they say about every single thing. To some degree that's true because we've learned better, so we should do better. Good example, I saw someone today post about someone who was perhaps mentally ill, and in a post, they used the word, they described the situation that had happened and said, has anyone else saw this crazy person? And I was horrified. That is the most demeaning thing to say, and I know that, but people still use these words. I believe that this person was not being mean, did not intentionally want to be mean. It's just something that they have become accustomed to saying. And so to the audience, I would say our audience is professional communicators. So we've learned that there are certain terms that we no longer use, and we try to correct that.

It does often feel like a mine field of stuff that's out there as a vegan. There are things that bother me. There's a phrase that people say, killing two birds with one stone, and it's like, please don't kill the birds. That bothers me. I'm not going to go off on you if you use that expression. But everybody has their stuff, is what I'm saying. And we do the best that we can to ensure that we are not isolating human beings and that we're being kind, gentle, and respectful, and that as we see things that are out there that are incorrectly phrased, if we have the opportunity to educate and advocate for proper language, then we should all join in that people have such misunderstanding about so many things today.

Michelle Kane (11:31):

Yes, yes. And then when you do enter that arena, you also are treading carefully of, whoa, what am I stupid? No, no one says you're stupid. We're just trying to bring to light some information. It's like everyone, I think we're just societally, we're still in just defense mode of what? What'd you say? How'd you say it?

Karen Swim, APR (11:55):

We are, and we feel like we have to speak a certain way or use a certain bit of language, at least our audiences do, and that somehow aligns them with their political ideologies. That's especially true in the United States, less true I believe, in other parts of the world. And so it's a tough time for communicators. It's also, I think for us, it is an exciting time because I feel always that we can be light bearers, that we can be the people that are able to communicate with just that right touch of bringing people together. And we can show people how to speak to their audiences respectfully in ways that will engage them, in ways that will not create further division. But to be clear, there are times when division's going to happen and having a PR pro on your team, having a solo PR pro is where this is super important in this day and age because PR posts can help you to be prepared and to guard against that because there's no way that any of us can just 100% avoid conflict that just doesn't exist in today's world. I'm sorry to inform you that something that you do, even when it aligns with your mission, vision, values, even when you've done the right thing, is going to anger somebody. I promise you it will. And we also cannot live our lives or run our companies trying to be free from hatred. The hatred is going to come regardless of what you do.

Michelle Kane (13:26):

That is so correct. But I love that you are always looking for the brightness and everything, and I think there are always opportunities to do better. Like you said, there are always opportunities to know better and then to do better. And if I could point our listeners to the Solo PR Pro blog, Karen has written a wonderful blog recently about hope and that we need to keep hope in our lives. We really do. So I would encourage you to read that. I just encourage you every day, just know that whatever you are feeling, especially in light of these current events, please know that you're not alone. You are never ever alone. And as communicators, the Solo PR Pro community is here for you. We are here for you. Please reach out to us at soloprpro.com. We really cherish every one of you. And until next time, thanks for joining us for That Solo Life.

Unveiling the Warsaw Principles: Ethical AI in PR

We cover AI and PR in many of our episodes because we want our fellow PR pros to have the knowledge they need to stay on top of this technology. In today’s episode, we’ll discuss the new “Warsaw Principles” unveiled earlier this month on the ethical use of AI in public relations by the International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO) at its Global Summit.

Read the story courtesy of ProvokeMedia.com.

 

Transcript

 

Michelle Kane (00:03):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with my company VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of the Mighty Solo PR Pro. How are you, Karen?

Karen Swim, APR (00:21):

Hi. I am doing good for Hump Day. Michelle, how are you?

Michelle Kane (00:25):

Exactly. Not bad, not bad. October's feeling a bit like a steamroller, but I am committed to staying just a few steps ahead of it. How does that sound?

Karen Swim, APR (00:36):

That sounds like all of us these days and 100% agree. I am feeling a little crushed right now.

Michelle Kane (00:49):

And the big picture is, it’s a great problem to have. So always spinning, always spinning the message. But yeah, so it's good. The air's getting crisper. That kind of perks things up a little. And I'll give a shout out now. I don't know what the story will be by the time this drops on Monday, but so far my Phillies are killing it. So life is good here in the Delaware Valley.

Karen Swim, APR (01:16):

Your Phillies are coming in and here in Michigan as we speak, the Lions are looking like a real football team. So go!

Michelle Kane (01:26):

And if the sports world is good, we are good, we're good.

Karen Swim, APR (01:30):

We need to celebrate and look forward to something.

Michelle Kane (01:34):

Amidst all the very serious strife going on. So today we're going to touch on, I know you're probably thinking, “they're talking AI again,” but we are, we're going to talk about AI because something really essential came out of the recent ICCO Global Summit and they are calling them the “Warsaw Principles” and they were ratified as principles for ethical use of AI and public relations. And I don't know about you, Karen, but as I was reading through them, I just kept nodding my head and then thinking, well, of course this is how an ethical communications person should use AI. But as we know, speaking of a steamroller, it is something that we really do need to keep up with before this technology might overrun our society and in a society where mis, mal, and disinformation is so horrifically prevalent.

Karen Swim, APR (02:37):

Yeah, I agree with one of the things for me is that we've talked a lot about the use of generative AI, and we've been keeping an eye on all of the ways that the use of AI, by others, by our audiences impacts our work. So I do think it is an important step. I know that PRSA has also addressed the ethics of AI and talked about this and voices for everyone has definitely put out resources about mis, mal, and disinformation, but I love that they tackled the problems as we move forward in this new world. And it is interesting that this came on the heels of other industries addressing AI and their work. So we saw this come up in the writer’s strike, in the ongoing actor’s strike in the ongoing auto workers strike. AI is playing a big role. And so the reason that we continue to talk about it is because it's developing so quickly and its use is becoming so widespread that we do also have to be very aware that it is a great tool when used properly, but we need to be aware of how it can be abused.

Michelle Kane (03:58):

Exactly. And in any good communication at the forefront should be the communicator's integrity, your credibility. Can you be trusted? Can you be trusted to give transparent and complete and factual information? And because without that, what are we doing?

Karen Swim, APR (04:22):

I agree. And one hope that I have, so one of the principles that, or something that the principals underscore the importance of is accuracy and fact checking. And I have to tell you, this is one of those things that just on a daily basis just causes me a lot of anxiety because even in our own just casual reading, you find that you really do have to check everything. And even with trusted sources. And I am hoping that as we continue to create and utilize AI and it becomes more and more ingrained into our daily lives in the work that we do, that there are also companies that can come up with ways to bulletproof the content that we produce. Because people can take something that you honestly said and repurpose it into something that sends a completely different message. That's a whole different level of monitoring for communications professionals. And it adds a whole new layer of complexity into protecting the reputations of our clients. And that's a scary area, and we've seen it happen. And unfortunately AI learns so it keeps getting better and better.

Michelle Kane (05:50):

So true, so true. And it does point to the need. It's not that we're not going to need our human touch anymore. We are still going to be necessary to do the actual thinking and to have the discernments on how to use these tools. I think especially with context, because I know nuance and context have really suffered in the last at least 30 years, maybe going back a little farther.

The public is less and less inclined to be used to thinking in those ways. And I don't want to sound elitist, but it's like, guys don't take everything at face value. What was the context? Or as communicators, we need to, as best we can, knowing that we are still trying to grab the, what's the current attention span, three to four seconds, maybe five. That's our challenge to present our information in the soundbite without losing the context. So I love that they included that in these principles with AI. And even thinking about intellectual property, I have to think of recently with Drake using Halle Berry's image without her permission. Now that wasn't AI. He made a conscious choice, but that kind of thing might not have happened five years ago. So there's this devolution of what's up for grabs for your use versus what is just either stolen or done without permission.

Karen Swim, APR (07:34):

Yeah. And ensuring that if you're using AI to create images, that you're not violating someone else's protected property. That's really important. And I could see that being a really tricky area as well. So we do need some checks and balances. One of the other things that stood out to me was bias, which is, it's interesting, even though we've started talking about generative AI more this year, at the end of last year, it just exploded into the public conversation. These are conversations that clients and I had a couple of years ago, specifically in FinTech industries where we did data and we saw bias in the data. And this has happened in the housing market where you're using AI tools, you're using data to make decisions that are very biased. And so I think we have to recognize that too, even in our use of tools like ChatGPT and generative AI, ensuring that they are not biased and that we are correcting for that because the tool does learn from us as well. So these are all weighty, complex issues that we can't solve on our own, but we do need to be aware of it. And the way in which we conduct our work needs to adhere to some ethical principles.

Michelle Kane (09:04):

Yes, yes. And even as you were saying that, I was thinking, yes, it's a problem we need to solve for, but I'm glad that it is out. I say out in the open,

Karen Swim, APR (09:17):

Right?

Michelle Kane (09:17):

It's like, oh, yes, there are biases in data sometimes. So we can no longer just turn a blind eye and say, oh no, it's data, it's fine. So now that we have this extra element to consider, I think that's helping us to directly confront some of these larger issues that affect lives.

Karen Swim, APR (09:41):

Well, it's related to this. It's interesting. I just saw something that someone wrote that really made me take a step back and think, because they talked about the whole idea of surveys being inherently biased towards certain abilities. So do surveys, you have surveys about people that have special needs or disabilities, but then you don't make those surveys accessible to that population of people. So who are you really surveying? And even in general surveys where you're asking questions and you're surveying an audience, you're missing a big section of the population maybe by either the way that you offer the surveys and not making them accessible to, for instance, people that don't have site or people who have other issues using computers or online tools or, so we're not solving for those issues. And it just opened up a whole other discussion for me and AVAs being aware of that as well, that as we seek to be inclusive in our communications, we also have to seek to be inclusive in our information gathering and making our content and our ask accessible to larger audiences.

Michelle Kane (11:11):

I love that you said that because imagine sending a survey to someone who, because of their abilities, can't respond to. It's like, that's a little shortsighted. Why would you do that? And I'm sure if you're putting the time in to create a survey, you want actual data because let's get real How many times, just looking at the event world, how many times do you present an event and you say, let's survey all the attendees, and you get maybe 3% return and you think, oh, okay. It's a little disheartening. So think of all those things when you put that together.

Karen Swim, APR (11:53):

And again, this is all, I don't think that any of us can claim to be perfect at this. I certainly count myself among that. I'm definitely not perfect at it. And I see lots of ways that I can improve, and it's particularly harder for small businesses because there's a lot of things to figure out. But I think that having these conversations and being willing to learn and to change and to adapt so that we can be inclusive is really important. And that includes in our use of AI, and then being open and understanding that we need to check for those things as we see not only in how we use AI, but how clients make AI as well.

Michelle Kane (12:40):

And I do love that they cover transparency. Again, that's also important with being upfront with, okay, this was developed with ai. And again, we've said this before. We're not saying every paragraph that you present to your client, you need to let them know what tool you use because that's ridiculous. That falls under spellcheck and all those things. But in the larger picture, especially things I would think like video and audio where things can be so easily manipulated and even to the trained eye, it's getting very, very good at fooling us. And that can be dangerous.

Karen Swim, APR (13:21):

I mean, listen, we are pretty upfront with our clients that we use generative AI as a tool in our work, and they know that just kind of as a blanket overall thing. So there are some things that there are ways that we use it, and we're happy to share that with clients. We're happy to guide the way and show them how they can streamline their processes with some uses of AI as well. So I do think that transparency is important, but I agree with you. We forget that we've used tools like Grammarly and we've used lots of other AI tools in our work for years without even thinking about it. And you don't tell clients, I got this name and information out of this database that uses AI to find reporters that match this thing because that is not really impacting them. So we're going to get normalized about this and we're going to feel less weird about it. But I think some communicators still feel in some way, like they're somehow cheating. They're cheating the system if they're using AI in their work as a tool. Now, if you're just straight up producing content from AI and you are not having any human interaction with it at all, and it's not at all your creation, yeah, that's probably something you need to mess up to for that particular piece. So also probably not the best idea to do that because it is a toll, it is not a replacement for you.

Michelle Kane (14:49):

Correct, correct. And I think what it all comes down to is be a good person, operate within your profession ethically and with consideration. And if you do those things, you'll be okay. If we all do it, we'll all be okay. And the world will be a better place

Karen Swim, APR (15:11):

For all my PRSA members out there. You all know that as a member, you agree to abide by the code of ethics, but even for non-members, it's great thing to go and look at that code of ethics and to refresh yourself on the standard that we should be holding ourselves to whether or not you're a PRSA member, because it really does. Everything that's in the worse off principles that's directed toward AI really flow right into the code of ethics that PRSA has. So if you're abiding by that code, you will find this not onerous at all. You will look at specific things to address in terms of ai, but I just think it's a good idea. September is ethics month at PRSA. So there's tons of resources there too that just happened in September with webinars and all kinds of information and resources. So that's another good place to go if you're looking to really ensure that you are operating ethically.

Michelle Kane (16:18):

That's great. That's great. And yeah, I think PRSAs is a great guiding light for our entire profession, whether or not you are a member. And we hope as you're listening, we hope this is actually energizing you and making you realize that we are going to have so many great new ways to serve our clients. My dogs agree. And just use this as a springboard for making us more efficient, bringing new ways to shine a light on all the good things our clients are doing. And we want to hear from you. Are you using ai? How are you using it? Have you come up against any conundrums? Let us know. It's solo pr pro.com. And if you're getting value from this today, please do share it around. Follow us, all the good things, tag us. We love it. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.

 

Balancing the Pitch: Navigating Mental Wellness as a PR Pro

PR pros, communicators, we work in a unique environment. In an industry where we feel compelled to always be “on” and available, it’s challenging to make the time to work on our mental health. Know that you are not alone and know that taking that time is not only worth it, it’s essential.

Mental health is a topic we’ve addressed in a previous episode and in this Solo PR Pro blog post.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR Pros who work for themselves like me, Michelle Cain, and my company VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how's your day today?

Karen Swim, APR (00:19):

Oh, I'm so good, Michelle. How are you?

Michelle Kane (00:22):

I’m good. I'm good. I'm a little bit toast. Had some major client events happen this weekend, and towards the end of the week, it seems like everything is decided to happen in the same two week period, which in this business is often beyond our control, so we tend to roll with it and get through as best we can. So yeah. How about you?

Karen Swim, APR (00:51):

Same. It feels like October has been, we know that, well, for us, the fall is usually busy, but I agree with you. It feels like there's all of a sudden 10 things happening on every day. There's meetings. There have been so many more meetings to go to so many more events, some of them all happening within the same set of days. And I think that that's probably a good segue into our topic today too.

Michelle Kane (01:22):

Yes, yes, it is. We're going to talk about which something we touch on often, and we're pretty sure there's reasons for that mental health, especially for those of us who work in the PR industry, the personality type that it takes to do this job. You're someone who's conscientious, always concerned about getting the details correct, and usually the one balancing all of the plates in the air and the many moving parts of things, not just for yourself and your business, but on behalf of your clients. So after a while, that tends to take a toll and we need to be cognizant of that.

I speak more from more of a viewpoint of hopefulness about this, but try and plan for that as part of the planning process that we do for our work.

Karen Swim, APR (02:25):

I think it's so helpful to also have people that can help to pull you out of a spiral sometimes just saying things out loud to another human being who truly gets the work that you do in the same way that we talk to our friends, but many of us have friends that are not in our business, and so they can empathize on one level, but it really does help. So even if it means just hopping on a Zoom meeting with a fellow colleague and just having a virtual coffee and just chatting about stuff, just voicing it out loud, it can make you feel like you're not the only one struggling. It reaffirms us and it has a way of energizing us. And I know I recently just came to a whole new understanding that I am a big overthinker. I overthink everything, and in my head I'm always writing scenarios, and I have been like that since I was a kid, which makes me great for pr, but it's not so great when you are trying to have a peaceful stress-free life. It means that I have to work at that and I have to sometimes tell myself to stop overthinking everything and stop running scenarios and just enjoy life. Same. Take somebody else to say, don't overthink it because I'll overthink everything. And I'm always like, okay, but what if this happens? And what if this happens and I want to plan for all of it, all of us do because that's who we are.

Michelle Kane (04:01):

Oh, totally, totally. Always thinking through, okay, well if this happens, then what all the “if thens” and to be ready for as much of anything as you can. And yeah, and that totally bleeds into my personal life too. I like to have a plan because I like the rest in knowing how a day is going to unfold. Not that I don't enjoy being spontaneous, so it can be loose. It can just be, oh, we're going to go to Philly, hang out and have dinner. Then I know, okay, that's enough of a plan for me at the moment.

Karen Swim, APR (04:38):

I read the stat, and it's from a study last year, and they were saying that, or maybe it was 2021, they were saying that PR people feel guilty about taking time off from work for mental health reasons. And that breaks my heart because as business owners, as communication professionals, we should never treat mental health like it's separate from our overall health. And I know that many of us are also guilty of powering through everything. Looking at my wonderful co-host over here who recently worked through illness, we will power through it all, covid, pneumonia, broken bones, I mean seriously. And we have to stop doing that. It brings to mind Simone Biles, who at the top of her game, the GOAT, and she had to walk away from her job to take care of her mind, and she did. She lived her life. She walked away. No one even knew if she was coming back and I that maybe some of you are thinking, well, she had the financial resources to be able to do that, but it still is a matter of being strong enough to choose yourself and to prioritize your own health and not continue to risk it day after day by showing up with just fragments of yourself. And so maybe you don't take, what did she do, take like a year or two off?

Michelle Kane (06:24):

Yeah, she got married…

Karen Swim, APR (06:27):

She came back and she blew through every record and became even greater. And I think that we need to keep that story in mind that it's okay to walk away. What does that look like for us who are solos? It means maybe it means sharing work with another person. Maybe it means teaming up with a colleague. And even if you're not teaming up to work on every single account together, maybe it means teaming up as backup. Maybe you backup each other up. Maybe you form an agreement where it's like, Hey, can you take the lead for me for a week and make sure that you keep the communications going? And I mean, it will take some work for you guys to develop a system, but take some pressure off. If you have a junior person that's working with you, let them handle communications. Tell them, train them how to do things in your absence. A lot of times it's not about, because you don't have to set strategy every single day. There's a lot of tactical things that can keep trains running and on the tracks while you take some downtime. Do not be afraid to walk away because I promise you it's better to pull back and to care for yourself than to show up broken.

Michelle Kane (07:47):

Yeah, it's so true. And it was funny, I was speaking with someone last week. We both recently had Covid. They got over theirs much more quickly. And I said, well, you took off. I didn't. And I know that. I know that, and I think it's one of the reasons I do that is because you think, ah, what's my work? I'm sitting at a keyboard that's kind of restful.

Karen Swim, APR (08:12):

It's not.

Michelle Kane (08:13):

No, no,

Karen Swim, APR (08:14):

It's not.

Michelle Kane (08:15):

So as I say, not as I do,

Karen Swim, APR (08:20):

I'll share in full transparency that the past couple of years are really hard for me. I lost a brother and I spiraled, I was having panic attacks, and then I went through a really bad depression. I just wasn't myself. And I made a decision with my colleague Carolyn, because she also had back to back. She lost both of her parents back to back. We were just at the end of ourselves. And so we made the decision not to do any business development and we didn't took care of the clients that we had. We backed each other up. We do have other team members that we can tap into, but we just took care of ourselves. I needed every single second of that. And I share this because I'm not only a solo, I'm single and I am my only source of income. So it's kind of a big deal to pull the brakes and to let the chips fall as they may. During that time, we did have clients that fell off. We had projects that ended. We had clients that had to pull back because of budgets. And rather than operating in a place of fear and lack, I just trusted that it would all work out because I knew that I wasn't there yet. I wasn't ready.

Michelle Kane (09:40):

Well, and I think you knew deep down you were doing the right thing. And it does come to a point, and I'll hold myself accountable to that too. It's like at some point you can be doing a disservice by pushing yourself too hard, also being single, it's scary to make that choice because it's like, Hey, it's just me pulling  this wagon up the hill. But you can take breaks.

Karen Swim, APR (10:09):

And I shared that because I want people to know that that thing that you are so afraid of is really not that scary. Was my bank account exactly where I wanted it to be? Not exactly, but I also didn't end up homeless. I was able to still pay all of my bills. Life kept moving on and it was fine. And Mike, many of you where I had that fear where I thought, oh, and a lot of times we push ourselves for those reasons I can't take off. I got a kid in college or kids in college or Oh my God, what am I going to do? It's just me. I need to do. Sometimes you don't. You really don't. And you need to just take the time. And I took an extended time and I let a lot of things fall to the ground, unfortunately. And you have to let go of the guilt too, because it is what it is. I'm a human being. I'm not perfect. I didn't have it all together. I wasn't ready. I was not okay at all. I really was not okay.

Michelle Kane (11:13):

I think that was the wisest thing that you could have done for yourself. And we do talk about this a lot too, the difference in the generations. I think us being X and silent, we still have that workhorse mentality of you got to do the things to get things done. And also speaking for myself, growing up in the faith community I grew up in, there was a lot of talk of grace and rest, but a whole lot of, well, we got to do all the things and we got to do 'em today and don't slack and blah, blah, blah. And I am still actively unlearning that aspect because I know it. That is not correct. You shouldn't be grinding yourself into the ground for others. That's not the whole point of this life.

Karen Swim, APR (12:12):

Something desperately wrong. And I came to say this to myself, if you're nicer to other people than you are to yourself, there's something wrong. Because even the way that sometimes we speak to ourselves, we're not very nice and we're not very good bosses to ourself. And if you think of yourself as would I tell another person to work wounded? Would I tell someone, I don't care that you don't feel good today, I need you to just show up anyway. You would never say that to another human being. So why do we treat ourselves? I'm so horrifically, it's not okay. We should be kind to ourselves. And again, it's like some of us won't even take two days off to just breathe. The world will not fall apart if you take two days off. It just will not. Maybe something will get a little messy. Maybe you'll miss something. Maybe you'll have to shift something around, but I promise you'll survive it. It won't all die. You didn't build a business that is on sand. Hopefully you didn't. Is it that fragile that if you take two days off, the world is going to fall apart? It really isn't. That's just in your own head.

Michelle Kane (13:24):

No, no. And if you tell yourself, oh, but it'll be so inconvenient on the other side, trust. I've said that to myself. That's out of proportion too. It really is. We are not air traffic controllers. It may feel like we are sometimes, but we are not heart surgeons. We are not ER physicians. And guess what? Even they have someone on call for them after hours.

Karen Swim, APR (13:52):

They do.

Michelle Kane (13:53):

They will say, okay, I see you are not going to die in 36 hours. We will operate on you on Monday. And it's so true that recording in your head that you play for yourself is so important. And the way that you motivate yourself is so important because I used to do that too. I used to negatively motivate myself if I don't then. And that would give me what I needed to get through. And one day I just said, oh God, that's so stupid. Why am I doing this? This is ridiculous. And like you said, I would never dream of treating anyone else like that. I would quit. I'd be like, oh, sorry. Okay. You won't see me tomorrow. See me? Never.

Karen Swim, APR (14:47):

And I mean, sometimes I went through pretty serious things. Maybe it's not that serious. Maybe you're just feeling burnt out. By the way, I went through that too. So after I got through all of the other hearts, then got a full on whatever stage of life I'm in, crisis full on. It was not pretty. And I was feeling super burnt out from my job, and I thought that I just wanted to walk away. It just didn't even care. I'm like, I hate this. I cannot wait to be done with this.

So there's a trick for that too. And I think one of the common things is listening to that voice, listening to yourself, listening to your body, and taking some time to get to the root cause in dealing with it. So for me, the burnout was because there were just things that I didn't like doing anymore. I didn't hate my whole job. I just didn't like certain tasks. And I could then look at them clearly and say, okay, well, I think I want a new plan and there's a new direction that I want to take. And so then understanding what really energized me and paying attention to the things that I could just put my head down and do and time would just disappear because I was enjoying it. And I listened to what other people were telling me when they were saying, oh my God, you're so good at this.

So I found that light, and then I started walking towards the things that gave me that light. And so if that's you, I encourage you to pay attention to what other people are saying, how you're feeling throughout your day as you're doing your day-to-day job. Are there things that you're just avoiding and you're just like, Ugh, God, I hate this. But then are there things that you're like, I love this. I love when I get to do this because lean into the things that make you passionate and it's okay. We talked about this last week. Michelle said it perfectly that when you're in traditional jobs, you change jobs every couple of years. Some people every year. You don't do the same job year after year after year in the same exact way. It's okay to change it up. It really is lean into things that really make you happy. And that is going to be different in different years of your life, in different parts of your life, there are things that you're going to love and then maybe you don't love them anymore and it's okay to change. It's fine. You'll be fine.

Michelle Kane (17:14):

Yeah. I mean, we all change. You were a different person when you started your business, and I'm sure there were different reasons that we started our businesses. So we're going to change and give yourself that space. And even if you do need to hunker down and just get her done for a time, that doesn't have to be become your standard mode of operation. It's that huge adage, we train people how to treat us and just surmounting that is so big.

Karen Swim, APR (17:52):

So big.

Michelle Kane (17:52):

Especially in a business where you feel like you must be available and always at the ready.

Karen Swim, APR (18:02):

Not always.

Michelle Kane (18:03):

No, not everything's a crisis. It's not horrible to establish those boundaries and to just give yourself the space that you need.

Karen Swim, APR (18:16):

I completely agree. And listen to other people who have been through this that are outside of this profession. If you want to Google Clarence Bethea, he is a former client and a friend and has been such an inspiration because he is an entrepreneur who really went through a period of depression. And he is so open about what he went through as a founder, the pressure of building a company and everything that was on the line. And he's one of the most inspirational people that you will ever meet. He's fantastic. So even people that are not in the communication industry, they get it. Draw strength from what others have been through. Somebody else has walked a mile in your shoes already and can provide that guiding light. But we don't want people to just be out there alone and hurting. I would also say that one of the big reasons that we created Solo PR Pro in the first place is that so that you had community.

So you really are not alone. You do not have to be a paying member of our community to reach out to us and get support. We're still colleagues. We get it. And again, just sometimes sitting down with somebody or reaching out to somebody to say, Ugh, I just feel over it. What can I do? How do I get past this? Really helps to get past it. And Michelle, you talked about hunkering down. I feel like hunkering down to do the things that are necessary becomes a lot easier when you're planning to lean more into that thing that makes you happy. Because you can always flip that switch right away, but you can make the mental switch where you're like, oh my God, I found it. I found the thing that is making me so happy right now. And as you're working on that thing and working on the pivot, the other thing sort of then become less important. And I think it's because in our mind, we know that we're not with it. Like, okay, I'm not stuck doing this forever, so I can get that.

Michelle Kane (20:20):

Yeah. And it all comes down to just a basic notion of always have something to look forward to. How often don't we do that? How often don't we just make those little plans of, even if it's one thing a week, and again, I'm not saying it because I'm an expert at it, I'm saying it because I need to do it too.

Karen Swim, APR (20:40):

There's a proverb that says, okay, now I forget where it is. But it's basically that the absence of hope makes the heart sick. So what you just said is 100% true. Without hope, we can become super depressed and burned out, and we lack hope when we allow ourselves to get down and tired, and then we spiral, and then that's all that we see, and we just keep circling the drain, and that's not good. So we want you to be recharged, re-energized, and excited about your professional life and your personal life.

Michelle Kane (21:16):

Absolutely. We so do well. We hope this has helped you. If you're nodding your head through it all, just please keep on keeping on and really carve out time for yourself. Just sit back and think. You don't have to spend a whole day on it, even 15, 20 minutes. Just have a little mental reset and reprioritize to get you through the day and then the week and on and on, and know that we are always here for you and Solo PR Pro is here for you. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.