Harding Place

Gray’s The New Blonde

Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz

Selling residential roofing and siding door to door was one of my first paying summer jobs while in college. The work was hard, clearly frustrating and demoralizing but paid well. . . if I made a sale. It was career and character-building, too.

I truly believe that much of my success today is due to skills honed and pain endured trying to persuade housewives to redo their homes in hopes that they would convince their husbands when they came home in the evening for dinner.

An incident one hot afternoon stood out so much, of many incidents, that I have laughingly retold the story many times over the years. It was part of my “schtick.”

Recently, I stopped laughing and began to see another side to the story.

I remember knocking on the door of a neat little house in a classic 1960s suburban working class neighborhood. You've seen it in a thousand movies and TV shows.

A little boy, not older than eight and not taller than four feet, answered the doorbell. "Hi, is your mom home?" I asked. It was the 60s and people were less fearful and cynical back then.

The kid then turned and yelled, "Hey, ma, there's a man at the door."

A man at the door? I immediately turned around to see if someone was behind me. There wasn't. He was referring to me. I was about 18 at that point and hadn't started to view myself as a man regardless of what the rabbi said five years before at my Bar Mitzvah.

Fast forward to the present.

After 28 years of running my own PR agency, promoting goods and services, ideas and ideals, and selling new business with the ardor of an 18-year-old signing an order for aluminum siding, that man reappeared at the door. And he was much older. Suddenly, I was no longer the youngest kid in my classroom, the last of my friends to get his driver’s license, and the first in the front row of every photograph. Now, I am the oldest. Everyone working for me is younger. I am the gray hair everyone said you had to have in the room. There is less hair, too, from years of pulling it out. I am the “gray beard,” though clean shaven.

Are there advantages to being the wise old sage, permanently black-and-blue from years of kicking myself for doing dumb things? Yes, I also burned my fingers two or three times before learning that the flame was hot, but I am a better person for it, tempered by pain and experience. It’s no accident that Star Wars’ Yoda looks the way he does, from centuries of pontificating. Besides, a wise young sage sounds like an oxymoron.

A study I read, too long ago to remember by whom, reported that entrepreneurs are less likely to dye their gray hair. Is this because entrepreneurs:

1. Are more self-confident, with strong sense of being?
2. Don’t worry about losing promotions to younger executives?
3. Desire the solicitous courting that comes with grey hair?
4. Like the contrast with navy blue suits

Probably, it is a bit of all four reasons. Then, again, grey is the new blond and the person I see in the mirror each morning is different. . . in a good vain way. Certainly, my 5 o’clock shadow now comes out at 6 o’clock. Occasionally, someone offers me a seat on the subway, or I get senior admission to movies without asking. But the greatest change was the biggest surprise because it was unexpected, unexpected so soon, anyway, and unexpected because I found myself graciously accepting.

A new business prospect actually said, “Tell Jerry to speak less.” It’s not that I was talking too much; it was because they knew well that I wasn’t going to work on their business. They truly wanted to hear from those on the next rung down.

“We like Jerry and he sets an image and a pace we want,” they explained. “He clearly has the experience and we value his opinions and creativity.” They were right. Next time we met, I did defer to the others. We got the business. We beat out the competition, serious competition, and I was content to stay in the background. I shook my head a lot, fidgeted with my pen and smiled knowingly.

Since then, since that seminal event, I’ve worked hard to restrain myself in presentations. Harder still is convincing my wonderful younger partners that it’s okay for them to take charge and run a new business meeting, even if the lead came from one of my relationships. Not unexpected, I found that if you give somebody the opportunity, they will rise to the occasion. In fact, fears of succession have rapidly faded away, along with my tap dancing skills. They have been replaced by pride.

Grief therapists will talk about a delusion called the “concept of the self” as a reason why some people fear death. They are referring to an inability to accept that the people around you, your loved ones, will be able to get along without you. I love the people at G.S. Schwartz & Co. They are great. I am learning rapidly that the business will continue to grow long after I retire to the golf course (I honestly don’t play, but I could learn) or some mountain top (I do ski).

That said, I am not retiring that fast. After 30 years of selling and servicing, I still have a lot to contribute. Besides, what else would I do? Where would I go every day? I guess I could always sell roofing and siding. I’m pretty good at it. I’m not a bad publicist, either. I like what I do.

# # #

The Fevor of the Fever

Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz

Last month was an incredibly busy month of no news.

You always can tell it’s a dull day in the world when an article on the front page of The New York Times is a stylish profile about a local merchant, or a TV newscaster turns an evening talk show guest into a lead story.

Whatever the news, I have learned not to automatically believe everything I see, hear or read. Maybe I’ve been in this business too long. Too many docudramas, historical novels, scientific fiction and even advertorials have blurred the line for good. Orson Welles sort of started it with his infamous “War of the Worlds” broadcast in 1938, turning avid listeners of radio into terrified captives of Martian invaders. The Chicago Tribune was clearly wrong in 1948 when it printed “Dewey Defeats Truman.” And my Captain Midnight secret decoder ring never quite worked the way the cereal box said it would.

Sorry for the paranoia, but what if there was no pandemic last month?

Sure, there was a swine flu outbreak. In fact, the pandemic of 1918, that killed 50 million people worldwide and 500,000 in the U.S., was a swine flu. “Flu” is short for influenza and humans picked up this one from living in close proximity to farm animals. The word swine was dropped by some media in favor of H1N1 influenza A because pork sales had dropped. Now, that was public relations!

But what if this whole media frenzy, that spread faster than the disease, was made up? The SARS virus was the training ground. In the 1990s, we saw the power of the Internet to virally spread news globally at the click on the mouse. More recently, Twitter tweeters reported in a near-instantaneous 140 characters about a terrorist attack at hotels in India and plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River. H E L P is only four characters.

Certainly, there was a swine flu outbreak. Tragically, people did die and, yes, the threat of spreading was real…. but the fervor of the fever coincidently subsided after one week. Many more people die every year from old-fashioned regular flu.

Then, what was going on?

The 24/7 media coverage for that week was way out of proportion to the problem, and, in some cases, bordered on outright fear-mongering in the face of higher ratings. In fact, one network news doctor literally stood there, live on screen, saying that he didn’t want to over-hype the story and scare people. . . but that is exactly what he was doing.

I’m not wagging any dogs, errrrr, swine, here, but you have to ask the question.

What if the whole pandemic was contrived for another purpose -- to deflect the world’s attention from the auto industry’s troubles and Obama’s first 100 days? In fact, Chrysler’s bankruptcy was announced in the middle of the flu crisis and on Obama’s 101st day. Could have been on the 99th day. Timing is everything. It was a good trial run for General Motors.

It was only the week before (unfortunately) that the head of Bank America claimed he was forced to do the Merrill Lynch deal, despite Merrill’s bad numbers. Truly, wow!

And just in case a case of virus wasn’t virally spreading fast and far enough, somebody said, “Hey, let’s send some low-flying planes over the tip of Manhattan.” Honestly, nobody would do such a stupid and obvious thing. But it happened. Two planes flew over Ground Zero right before the Chrysler announcement. Somebody got fired.

Now, despite my 1960s northeast liberal upbringing, as a public relations executive, I still believe in, ahem, a controlled flow of information. Ideals aside, sometimes a greater good is more important than total transparency. We saw the wizard behind the curtain in Oz, but found it comforting to hear that brains, hearts and courage are the stuff of heroes and scholars, not magic tricks.

Who would have benefited from knowing that Bank of America was pushed hard to acquire Merrill Lynch? Who would have benefited if the deal died? Did Paulson and Bernanke pull off the shot gun marriage of the financial world or should they have thrown that baby out with the bad water? On the heels of the Bear Stearns and Lehman collapses, we did not need to chance a third failure. Are we better off now that we know? Would we have been better off not knowing?

Dunno. But to some extent, what you don’t know, you don’t know. Remember that old line, if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it make a sound? Same with news. The New York Times decided that if they publish something then it is news fit to print, making the Times the newspaper of record. A prior administration refused public pictures of solders’ coffins, hoping if you did not see it, maybe it did not happen.

Long ago, I learned that news is what the media decide to publish. Every day, dumb public relations events get pre-empted by important breaking news. You can feel the power of the press when you see stories about crises on the front page and your story gets postponed or pushed to page 43. Maybe a major objection to the Internet and bloggers is that there are no gatekeepers in cyberspace deciding what’s hot and what’s not. There is great truth in what they say about democracy -- I’d rather be here than somewhere else. It’s a great country.

The 1978 movie Capricorn One, which echoed a favorite Twilight Zone episode, told the story of a group of astronauts whose mission to Mars was faked to save the space program. That was fiction.

It’s tough being an “insider,” which, in this business, means you see the publicity stunt or press agentry. It’s the waiter who sees what the chef really does to the food, the contractor who finds the electrician short-cutting on materials, the travel agent who knows the lower price you could have paid. So, too, it’s the publicist who knows the restaurant or book or actor isn’t as good as the reviews. Worse is the person who believes their reviews and let’s them go to their head. Often, when I see a tough but successful placement I say to myself, “Good job,” because when you are in this business long enough you really can see another agency’s work and you know how hard it is.

On the other hand, the Internet creates a consumer-driven and transparent marketplace that is a valuable mediator between buyers and sellers. Like any competition, quality and value improve when the playing field is level. Like Wikipedia, an accurate definition eventually surfaces.

Matthew 7:6

#

Darwin and Bradbury Were Right

Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz

Secretaries, stewardesses, janitors and press agents have all joined with the guy who used to clean our typewriters – IBM Selectrics – once a month.

For 10 years, from the mid 1980’s to the mid 1990s, the Katharine Gibbs secretarial school was a client of my public relations agency. Our mission was to attract women into secretarial jobs as a stepping stone to executive positions and create an image of quality that pushed salaries to a premium for Gibbs grads.

At that point, the world was changing rapidly, thankfully, and in less than one generation my secretary disappeared. Where once there was one secretary per executive, there was one for two executives, then one per group, then one per floor. Now, whole businesses have a handful of “admins” and executive assistants. Of course, the trade-off was that executives, at their higher salaries, were doing clerical work, doing their own electronic typing, filing, mailing and recordkeeping. But it was too late, the engines of change were grinding ahead. No longer would they “dial” a phone number; just push “address book.”

Necessity being the mother of invention (success has a lot of fathers), in that period from roughly the mid-1980’s to the mid-1990’s, computers exploded on the business scene, increasing penetration at the same time they declined correspondingly in price. Logically, software applications followed and suddenly we went from two fax machines running full time to two addresses for emails. “Delete” replaced “White Out.” “Cut and Paste” replaced “Cutting and Pasting.” Voice mail replaced the receptionist and females started replacing males in key executive positions and often they were better because they brought new thinking to the boardroom. Guys weren’t the ones demanding better childcare, for example, and arguably their children provoked casual Fridays, free snacks and two presidential birthdays celebrated on one Monday.

How quickly we forget. Up to this seminal crossover, the U.S. had been falling behind some other countries, most notably Japan, in innovation. Magically, during this period, the shifting balance in the American workplace generated the spark that drove the new technological revolution that produced the Internet and put the U.S. back on top, again. Incredibly, there was a time when French was a contender for the language of business (huh?), then it was Japanese, then the Internet spread English so widely that its early teaching in India helped drive that country’s economy as the leading global destination for outsourcing everything from call centers to market research to law. No one realistically envisions Spanish as the global language of business despite the massive numbers of native speakers. Nor Mandarin, though elitist parents may push their children to study it in private schools to give them cocktail party conversation on weekends.

The loss of jobs to low cost producer countries has been bemoaned for 50 years since Kodak lost sales of Brownies to Nikons after World War II, and Nash Rambler sales declined as Volkswagen Beetle sales boomed during the same period. Made in America did not mean assembled in America.

But for all the industries that evaporated with a corresponding loss of jobs to overseas manufacturers, our national unemployment rate has not increased. Innovative businesses, different skills and new jobs popped up. In merely a decade, brand names like eBay and Google became as well known as Coca Cola and Nabisco, though the latter took a hundred years to reach their present presence. Now, it’s the auto industry at risk. Before, the apparel, toy and appliance industries, among many others, rose and fell. Factory graveyards in the Northeast and Midwest have been resurrected as condos, restaurants and boutiques.

Once we were an agrarian society with most jobs tied to the land, then we became manufacturers after Eli Whitney invented the concept of interchangeable parts. For the last 25 years, we’ve been moving to a capitalist society based on intellectual capital.

In the midst of the current economy, probably it’s hard to see that America’s finest hour may be dawning. It took us 200 years to realize – but not yet appreciate -- a new age, finally free from high cost, manual labor intensive growth that’s better suited to more developing countries, where their psycho-social-educational point on the time line is now where ours was 50 to 100 years ago in the decades starting with the Industrial Revolution. Japan was a low cost provider in the 1950’s and 1960’s and then they, like us, moved manufacturing to places like Taiwan, Korea and Singapore. Now, Chinese manufacturing is starting to get expensive. Who will benefit next, South America, Africa, Antarctica?

Imagine a place, a country where the power of thought is the economic vehicle driving growth. Imagine a civilization so advanced that creativity and innovation are the only currencies by which GNP is measured. Maybe that’s where we are going and the current economic downturn is not so much a case of over leverage as it is a very difficult transition from one economic order to the other, as we move from a manufacturing base to an intellectual base. Perhaps the Great Depression was caused by the transition from an agricultural-based economy. More important, what happens when we run out of low cost providers? Do we seek other planets?

So many science fiction books and movies portrayed the aliens as super-intelligent beings with big heads and frail little bodies. Most likely they were once muscle bound machinists eons before Ray Bradbury’s imagination. They sought to conquer new worlds where cheap labor could build new civilizations, the way the garment industry was built on poor immigrants in the early 1900s.

The intellectual capital has always been there, a Darwinian survival by many cultures, ethnicities and nationalities seeking central heating and running water. That creativity and innovation shows in the sons and daughters of drill press operators who sought jobs where they could shower before instead of after work. I’m reminded of a story about a young trader, who indignantly quit his $3 million Wall Street job when his employer paid him only $2.5 million because the markets declined. This was the son of a dishwasher in east L.A. Sure, the parents had the ambition and intellectual capacity but they often lacked the language skills and education. So, dad built the largest mechanical contracting business in New Jersey or struck it rich as a wildcatter in Texas. Mom became the high school guidance counselor or the hottest real estate broker in town.

Yes, we did earn more than our parents, but it wasn’t hard. Should our children expect the same? Inventors and other entrepreneurs should make as much as possible. Should hired guns running publicly funded organizations? Maybe not. They have a financial and fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and lenders. “Retention Awards” in a shrinking industry make no sense, yet the compensation numbers are staggering. Is half of $5-million annually acceptable pay? Is a $35,000 office redecoration more reasonable because it creates a better work environment? Are private jets worth their cost in executive time saved at airports? Is $500,000 not enough to live on in New York because Hampton’s summer homes cost a lot?

I remember when, in the 1970s, the baby boom generation rejected materialism. Times change.

#

Don't Turn a Deaf Ear to Music Branding

Adapted from an article in

Advertising Age

Perceived and Posted By Jerry Schwartz

Music. Records to some, jingles to others, a theme, a tune, a few bars or a beat -- it's music, yes, but it's more: It's branding, music branding, and the sound is music to corporate ears.

What is new for companies is technology, which allows marketers to target consumers aurally on a variety of platforms. More than radios, tape recorders and record players, suddenly computers, iPods, birthday cards and toys sing and play instruments -- and ever more cheaply. The size of reproduction has shrunk from a big wood-and-metal box to a thin plastic case, and the quality has only improved.

Imagine the theme of Sesame Street playing on your cellphone via Bluetooth technology while you're passing a toy store in a mall, or Jiffy Lube's theme on your car's GPS system while driving to work, triggered by an electronic roadside billboard. Music enables a marketer to fine-tune an audience by demographics and geography based on genre – hip-hop, rock, blues, country, oldies -- in a way sports or cultural events can't.

Please read the full article as it appeared on AdAge.com on February 18, 2009, click on the link or copy and paste it into your browser: http://www.adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=134684

Online Below The Line

Adapted from “IRupdate” – a publication from the National Investor Relations Institute Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz

The rise of digital communications as the predominant method of shareholder communications was outlined at a presentation before NIRI’s New York Chapter three years ago. Everyone applauded…politely, though skeptically.

Since then, two major global events took place that were key to this seminal transition from old media to new. One was the explosion of social networks and the second was the acceptance by the SEC of the digital distribution of annual reports without a backup hard copy. Nearly 80 years have passed since the SEC Acts were first passed, and it is remarkable that this latter change has gone mostly unnoticed — and certainly unsung.

There is a third digital trend occurring that will have a massive impact on shareholder communications because it builds on the first two and that is the explosive growth of mobile communications, adding yet another new media platform to the pallet of tactics available to investor relations professionals. Technology is our friend and Wall Street embraced it a long time ago. It has made a lot of people who build firms around electronic trading very wealthy.

Welcome Technologies to the Party

Now, technology-based media are elbowing their way into the party and we need to welcome the unique advantages and opportunities they provide. Investor relations professionals’ reluctant acceptance of these new media is evident in a general resistance to anything more than streaming or downloading of management presentations.

The business of shareholder communications and analyst relations was profoundly changing prior to the last bubble, when the dot.coms cratered. Governmental, economic, marketing and social forces were well underway 20 years ago that would shift the influences on stock price and corporate reputation. It was an evolution of the relationship between corporations and investors, a changing balance, as well as the explosion of forces much more powerful than meeting with a room full of investors.

Let’s not waste time arguing about the impact of publicity on stock price and corporate reputation (it’s undeniably huge and growing). Further, let’s not waste time on a definition of publicity and instead let’s call it multi-platform communications to refer to the wider selection of methods for reaching various target audiences and now their new-found ability to respond, called interactivity.

Once upon a time, publicity meant third-party endorsements — commentary by reporters, editors, and broadcasters in traditional print and broadcast media. Then, the Internet changed the rules and suddenly that third party became less important. The dot.com era created an atmosphere where just posting information on a Web site was as important — if not more important -— than a reporter’s story. Companies and investors would call a simple press release, reproduced verbatim on a company’s own web site, “publicity.” Quantity became more important than quality. The more press releases the better. Any news was more information and press releases evolved into news releases. In fact, “news” was defined by the volume of information and, so, daily press releases became the rule, if not the practice, and stock prices rose (or fell) accordingly. Some even viewed a lack of press releases as an indication that something was wrong. There were no blogs and bloggers at that point (in the late 1990s), only “whisper numbers,” spread in hallways after the investor meetings.

Today, we have bloggers and much more. No longer are there merely magazines, newspapers, radio and television. Today, publicity — or whatever you want to call it — thrives across a wide range of media with broader power to affect business and how we all make a living. The growth and success of these dynamic new technology-based news platforms, occurring in such a short period of time, cannot be underestimated nor relegated to the doings of teenagers buzzing about their social lives.

Social Media, Blogs, Twitter, YouTube…

Where once eighteen-year-olds played with MySpace, today both young and old hear, see and learn from Twitter, YouTube, SecondLife and millions of blogs of varying importance, ranging from extreme to meaningless. Some seventy-year-olds get all their financial information online, along with healthcare, travel and other information. Moreover, all this information is not from company web sites or online sites of traditional media. Bloggers, chatrooms, message boards and other alternative sources are big digital destinations for financial facts and figures (and, yes, fiction).

The extraordinary contrast between investor relations now and then is summed up by Magellan Fund’s legendary manager Peter Lynch, who said “…invest in things you know....” Well, one big way we know about companies we invest in is through publicity, especially for B2B companies, products and services.

How do you think millions of small investors learned about ITT telecommunications equipment, Schlumberger drilling equipment and Genzyme’s bio products? They read about them somewhere, and not on cereal boxes in supermarkets. McDonald’s and Wal-Mart are easily familiar, each with thousands of brick and mortar billboards across the country. Face it, you can’t love a ceramic capacitor like you love Rice Crispies®.

Some IR professionals may still feel that the broker buzz or analyst trickle down is more important, but maybe it’s their reluctance to accept the billion-dollar impact of a story planted somewhere by a 30-year-old kid making $75,000 a year, who barely knows a put from a call. Maybe it’s a territorial thing.

That same deprecation shows in the reluctant acceptance of bloggers by credentialed journalists. But, chiropractic isn’t medicine to some people, either, and its professional practitioners aren’t as widely accepted as doctors, either.

Should We “Ask Uncle Bill?”

Okay, so we don’t want to deal with or admit to the enormous power of a mere comment in an article on the price of a stock, let alone a feature story in a major national business publication reaching hundreds of thousands or millions of investors. Worse is accepting the sheer psychological impact of a vastly read and quoted blog with a name like “Ask Uncle Bill.”. We’re talking about millions of impressions at the touch of a key — locally, regionally, nationally, internationally — versus a well-crafted CEO’s annual speech in front of a smallish room of mostly directors, officers and a few shareholders.

In a global investing climate, in a horrific international market meltdown, at a time when the huge Baby Boom generation is retiring and also inheriting the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth ever — why believe in one-to-one marketing — when we can reach a billion people all at the same time? The reason stocks move is that there are more buyers than sellers, not fewer. Tell people to buy your stock. Tell everyone you can. Tell them now.

It is the truly reclusive and potentially self-destructive IR professional who refuses to embrace and use these increasingly influential technologies or platforms or channels — or even worse, who dismisses them altogether as the domain of PR executives.

Change is good.

#

Positively Recessive

Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz

Even Ghengis Khan had a mother who loved him.

Yes, recessions are not loveable and, in fact, are downright painful experiences for owners, managers and staff alike. The instability and insecurity, however and by whomever defined, sucks. It’s hard to plan, rough to motivate and impossible to grow in the midst of an economic breakdown. This one is wide and deep and is not ending so quickly.

For me, having gone through six or eight of them in my career, the best I can say, and somewhat proudly, is that recessions make me a better manager. They test my skills, talents and adaptability, and teach me the virtues of humility along with advantages of living modestly. No million dollar office renovations for me, Mr. Thain.

As the saying goes, when someone else loses their job it’s a recession, and when you lose your job it’s a depression. Certainly, we all know people who have lost their jobs. Our houses don’t sell. Our portfolios are down. Our 40l(k)’s are now 201(k)’s. We postpone purchases and seek out sales and specials. Restaurant Week now lasts a month and everyone is aging rapidly to get senior admission to movies. The problem is so pervasive, so complex that even the inauguration of a popular president has not yet lifted hopes. The mood is particularly unsettling for those under 30, who are probably experiencing their first big bust. Words like “depression,” or phrases like “this time it’s different” are scary.

In the face of such angst and pain, here are some random thoughts on why you could love a recession:

• Irrational exuberance (horrible thing that it is) is finally over

• Arrogant people are humbled and easier to be around

• People who are really dumb stop making millions of dollars

• Obnoxious people in the next office disappear…finally

• You can always get a reservation at a "hot" restaurant, if it's still in business

• You can sit down even if your entire party isn’t present

• Good wines are frequently 25 to 50 percent off

• Not buying dessert saves you real money and calories

• You have time for breakfast (dinner is too expensive!) with your friends

• You can get in really good shape since you finally have time to go to the gym

• You don't have to be at the office at 7:30 pm because there isn't that much to do

• You can always get a cab -- even in the rain and even at 5 pm

• Everything in the stores is on sale, all the time

• You are less self-conscious about bargaining

• Clothing colors, shapes and styles seem to last a bit longer

• Your cooking, sewing and hair-fixing skills sharpen

• Ad-bare magazines and newspapers are lighter and easier to carry

• The rotten stock market gives us something to discuss at parties

• Bernie Madoff and Marc Drier give us more to discuss at parties

• You finally feel like you’re not the only one

But the best thing about recessions is that they end, eventually. They always do and it makes us value the good times that much more. One day not soon enough, cash will flow, again, businesses will rehire and everyday life will return to something called normal. Restaurants will say they only have openings at 5:00 pm and at 10:00 pm. The Hampton Jitney will be filled. Two-fers will be one-fers, again. And investment bankers will get big bonuses so they can live the lifestyle they had once grown accustomed to.

Like 7-year cicadas, James Bond movies, the four seasons, the number 6 subway and certain prolific authors, the cycles of boom and bust are inevitable. Nothing goes up or down forever. As they say on Wall Street, “Even a dead cat will bounce if it’s dropped from high enough.” Boing.

This recession should end on June 21 at 4:32 pm EDT – Father’s Day and the first day of summer. It’s a good time to hug your kids, kiss your spouse and spend a little money to help stimulate the economy.

Out with the bad air, in with the good.

#

Reflections on the Power of Words

Adapted from “The Firm Voice” – a publication of the Council of Public Relations Firms

Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz

Words create perceptions. They make and break reputations. They lend resonance to our deeds — and they're the building blocks of our work in this field. As such, they can be very powerful.

No one recognized this reality more profoundly — or put it to practice more effectively — this past year than all-American regular guy Randy Pausch, who died last July 25th at age 47. The father of two and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, his life, and death, story had been well publicized since he delivered his memorable "The Last Lecture" speech at Carnegie Mellon.

Of all the many words in his lectures, emails, book and articles, one quote hits you like a tome: "I'm focused more on what [my kids] are going to lose than what I'm going to lose." Wow, words. Witty or wry, woeful or wonderful reminders of the power of thoughts printed out. It makes little difference whether they come to us online or offline. Content reigns, no, it pours like tears over Randy's requiem.

New media have changed the power of words and public relations. Now, we frequently go direct to the customers. As a result, reporters, editors and broadcasters are no longer the gatekeepers. Arguably, we are. But we are behind the scenes and few see the power of what we do. Not idle talk, trite truisms, boring banalities, but real stuff, the sustenance of everyday life — publicity, gossip, buzz, hype.

People sometimes overlook the role we play as PR people, the impact, the influence, the simple nudge of our work, a mere sentence sometimes sliding slowly down a slippery or well-slogged slope, subtly or not so subtly steering the subtext with a sprinkle of subliminal saccharine. Maybe our modesty mirrors an inability to accurately measure our meaning or methods. Maybe we're just too busy doing our job.

Pursuing publicity, we forget the staggering significance of our PR strategies on the simplest of goals. A single key stroke can create history and alter the future, and certainly build a business. It's incredible to consider that the power to win an election, win an award, win salesperson of the year or win the approval of some constituency can reside in the hands of an unknown soldier.

I was 25 years old once when, working at a giant global PR agency, my boss said the power and influence of what we do is magnified by the complex, if not difficult, problems of our clients and a world where we waged war. He was referring to that agency's high-profile accounts at that time — ITT and the Chilean affair, Greece under Papadopoulos and under the Shah. “PR shines during tough times," he remarked over the top of his bifocals with split lenses, while scratching too-long side burns and unbuttoning the collar of his polyester pop-print shirt.

That was 30 years ago, in the mid-1970s, long before Arpanet, which became the Internet. This development changed the public relations business for the good, and forever. Not only can we do what we never could before, but the Internet helps to spread the message of our good works farther and faster than word of mouth. Now, everybody knows what my wise, old boss knew: Public relations is hot, public relations is cool, public relations is powerful and the perfect tool for the new millennium.

Given the affect and effect of our work, what’s a PR program worth? I'm frequently reminded of a tale about the late Mark McCormick of IMG fame, when meeting a potential client. After stating his fees for organizing a big sports event, the prospect said, "A million dollars for making a few phone calls?" Legend has it that McCormick then reached into his pocket, pulled out a few quarters and said, "If you think it's easy, here, you make the calls."

So Benedict bows, Obama beams, Ballmer befuddles and Britain bestows. Popes, politicians, potentates, the prominent and the purposeful, people pursuing power and a lot of other "Ps" employ PR people. They need us and they all use us. They reward us for our words. That is what we do. We can only hope ours are as powerful as those of Randy Pausch.

#

Thank You, Eli Whitney

Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz

A town without publicity is a town without pity, to borrow a few words from Gene Pitney.

New Haven, Connecticut, is the home of more than a great university (not Quinnipiac, though a good school), it is my home town, too, and arguably one of the great centers of intellectual capital, capitalism and invention for a city its size in the U.S. Gene Pitney grew up in Hartford, but recorded a lot in New Haven, with a partner, under the name Jamie and Jane.

Sounds like so much PR, huh? Actually, the lack of awareness underscores the dangers of having little or no public relations program. Clearly, somebody has done a great job for other places like Silicon Valley, Research Triangle and other hot pockets. Cities like San Jose, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Reston, Wayne, Raleigh-Durham and Huntsville have ridden a boom for decades, now.

Arguably, New Haven, a tiny town of 126,000 people at the intersection of I-91, I-95 and the Merritt Parkway, with an eponymous railway and a uniquely deep water harbor on Long Island Sound, 1 ½ hours from New York and 2 hours from Boston, proved a compelling and natural location to become an intellectual and industrial center. Yale came to New Haven for these, among other, reasons. New Haven is not what it is solely because of Yale, contrary to any publicity.

And that’s the point. The city has just had a lot of lousy press over the years, but now is on the upswing, happily. Long ago nicknamed the Elm City for trees long since gone from disease, New Haven was one of the fashion centers of North America, benefiting from New York garment center immigrants moving up the coast in the early 1900s. Ann Taylor, Gant shirts and J. Press started there. The founders of Paul Stuart and Starter Sportswear grew up there. Obviously, the New Haven Button Company tied the whole thing together.

But, a toy capital as well? It was the first home of Silly Putty, Frisbees, Erector Sets, Gilbert Chemistry Sets and Lionel Trains.

Hey, entrepreneurs gotta eat and New Haven’s large Italian and Jewish population cooked up a lot of business. More than home to famous Sally’s Pizza, (white clam, yummy!) but also home to lollipops, hamburgers and bagels. Yes, bagels existed long ago in eastern Europe, but the Lender family took them from local ethnic food to American staple by freezing and shipping them to the armed services, hospitals and prisons in the 1950s and 1960s. Oysters were big, too, as the harbor and Long Island Sound grew into a huge oyster bed, one of the world’s finest till pollution sunk the industry. See?

There are cities 10 times larger with half the industry and innovation.

Perhaps all this innovation started with Eli Whitney, who invented the cotton gin in 1793, but clearly didn’t hire a PR agency. From cotton gin, to cotton shirts and dresses, seems a natural path, but Whitney also conceived interchangeable parts, the basis for modern manufacturing.

Instead of handmade, one-at-a-time items, suddenly thousands of products were produced along with the creation of a new line item on balance sheets – inventory. Among the first items manufactured were guns, which fueled the Civil War and created a new industry of gun manufacturers in New Haven, including Marlin and Winchester, where Samuel Colt invented the revolver before starting his own company just up the road in Hartford. The use of brass and shells found its way to the inner workings of clocks, locks and frocks (buttons!) and the naming of nearby Waterbury as “Brass City.” Even Alexander Graham Bell, not a native, found his calling in New Haven and set up the first telephone exchange and published the first telephone directory. The first phone booths were installed there, too, arguably precursor to the mobile phone.

Yale’s Whiffenpoofs may have been good, but the school had nothing to do with the births of locals Michael Bolton, The Carpenters, Artie Shaw and the Five Satins. As noted, Gene Pitney only recorded there. However, the city’s Shubert Theatre premiered Carousel, Sound of Music, The King and I, My Fair Lady and South Pacific, as well as many flops. A couple of other hits from the city were producer Norman Lear and the singing, dancing Senator George Murphy.

Now, Yale’s draw is significant and should not be underestimated. It explains why George Bush is a native (his father attended). But it is inconceivable that education brought together the parents of Benjamin Spock, Al Capp, Robert Moses, Benedict Arnold and Larry Summers – all natives. If you tire of this, remember that Charles Goodyear was both born there and birthed vulcanized rubber, there, launching yet another industry.

Speaking of bulldogs, Bill and Hillary only attended Yale, along with a whole bunch of other prominent politicians and captains of commerce.

As a former resident and life-long native – plus career public relations executive –

I’ve done my job for good, old New Haven. The new New Haven is going great and now it’s somebody else’s turn to promote the next 370 years.

No Jeans The First Time

Perceived and Posted by Jerry Schwartz

Public Relations, as I learned long ago, is more than publicity, articles in the media or stories on the evening news and, of course, now, online.

That said, an article in The New York Times recently pointed out that Democrats are dropping use of the word “stimulus” in favor of the more optimistic sounding “economic recovery program.” This was after realizing that Wall Street’s “rescue” felt better than “bailout.” Perhaps White House Communications Chief should be a cabinet-level position.

As the stock market has sunk repeatedly during this crisis, or at least an absence of confidence, Obama’s moving swiftly on his cabinet appointments and economic team filled an important gap between now and January 20. Who said the president elect has no real power, yet?

A few weeks ago, a bunch of powerful automotive executives hopped on their private jets to visit Washington to plead for money to save the auto industry. Clearly, they are operating on auto pilot. Here we are, in the middle of a painful recession, where everyone now knows someone who is unemployed and these extremely smart executives do something that, in one single action, underscores what is wrong with Detroit. Personally, I would have picked up everybody in one car – an American made car – and driven to Washington. Imagine all of the fabulous “whistle stops” en route. (I did read they are driving the next time.)

This trip was unconscionable and unimaginable at this point in time, on par with senior guys on Wall Street making tens of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses last year and a mere half dozen of them in a single firm volunteering to go without their bonuses this year. Symbolic, yes, but not enough.

The problem lies in another 25 to 50 executives in every firm, each of whom made about $1 million or more last year. That’s a lot of money in any economy. Nobody cares whether it’s bonus or salary or deferred compensation or stock or perks, it is just wrong to take that kind of money when hundreds, if not thousands are being fired, while stock portfolios are plummeting, and while taking money from the federal government, regardless of whose individual fault the failure was in each firm. When John Mack rejoined Morgan Stanley in 2005, he took no salary that first year while trying to rebuild the firm. Same with Steve Jobs, when he returned to Apple, in 1996.

Certainly, this ranks up there with the $150,000 wardrobe for Sarah Palin and lavish corporate Christmas parties this season. It always was the little things that count.

Long ago, an old boss of mine said, never drive a fancier car than your customer. I drive a Volvo.

If perception is not everything, certainly it ranks ahead of whatever is in second place. If your first impression is poor, there may not be another chance. That’s the danger of showing up for an interview wearing jeans. Nothing new. Russia, Venezuela and North Korea posture publicly and rattle their sabers in the presence of an incoming new young president.