Airfoil Public Relations

We've Moved!

2012-08-23T13:55:47-04:00

Hello loyal readers,

Airfoil's blog has moved to our new homepage, at www.airfoilgroup.com. To continue learning about trends in communication, get writing tips, and share in our love of all things sports and pop culture, please head here.

Thanks,

The Airfoil Team

The Tech Kings Discuss Connectivity and Near Field Communication (NFC)

2012-07-26T16:20:35-04:00

Airfoil's resident Tech Kings, Aaron Petras and Tony Onofrio, discuss the benefits of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. With expected sales of NFC-equipped handsets to reach 263.6 million units by 2015, connectivity will be taken to another level through the endless benefits of this user friendly interface.

So what do you say? Will you be connected? Share your thoughts in the comments section below or via twitter, just mention @airfoilpr.

8 Lessons Learned from Aurora

2012-07-24T12:18:43-04:00

Airfoil’s “Mission Control Team” is responsible for training executives and employees of client companies to communicate their mission and messages more successfully, especially during a crisis. The team devotes a significant proportion of its training program to crisis communications and prevention, frequently focused on workplace violence. Last week’s horrific events in Aurora, Col.—the largest mass shooting in U.S. history—furnish a scenario that can be translated to manufacturing plants and other business sites. Many lessons in preventing and responding to crises certainly will be learned from that terrible night. Here are eight of the most important that have become apparent even at this early stage:

Anticipate that company events may be the likeliest targets for gunmen, because large numbers of people are gathered in close proximity.
Check and re-check entries to ensure unguarded doors remain locked.
Station security personnel where potential victims may be situated, not just nearby where smoke, gas and/or bullets may prevent first responders from reaching victims quickly.
Re-evaluate first-responder gear stored onsite to be certain it includes gas masks or other protection from smoke and gas.
Train your employees on how to help each other survive and escape in times of panic.
Some state laws allow individuals to carry weapons in their cars. Implement a tough policy to ensure those weapons are not brought into the workplace through open doors, in packages or on persons.
Be aware that gunmen often target people leaving the scene, but escape usually is the best means of survival. Be certain your employees know where all exits are situated (e.g., through offices, fire escapes), not just the marked preferred exits.
Establish evacuation staging areas at the farthest possible walking point. Evacuating just outside the building is no protection at all from a gunman. In Aurora, bullets penetrated the adjacent theater and at least one man was wounded.

In a workplace violence scenario, no two situations are alike, and the nature of precautions continues to evolve. A final recommendation, therefore, is to periodically review and analyze your crisis prevention policies and actions to ensure no gaps have arisen as your facilities and staff have expanded or your locations have changed.

--Steve Friedman is the director of marketing communications at Airfoil, a high tech PR/marcomm agency with offices in Detroit and Silicon Valley. Follow Steve on Twitter @prwritingpro

A Scavenger Hunt for the Roots of Today’s Culture

2012-07-17T15:14:05-04:00

In the course of their careers, public relations pros build a long list of areas they need to study—how various industries operate, differences among markets, cultural traits globally, digital devices, media preferences and processes, not to mention grammar, spelling and writing skills. But the one area that many PR practitioners—especially younger ones—fail to study over the years is the years themselves.

Today’s account teams are intensely focused on the latest trends, emerging social media, pop culture, sometimes politics, but they often haven’t taken the time to understand the historical roots of these phenomena. As in changing lanes in a car, we can’t really appreciate our fast-changing current society without first looking back to see what’s behind us. Can you answer this 12-question quiz?

Why is b-roll called b-roll?
Who was Louise Brooks?
Why, specifically, is a no-one-there phone call termed a hang-up call?
Who was Matt Dillon (not the actor)?
What was a “waxer” in publications terminology?
Who was Cole Porter?
What is a Finder Binder?
Why is leading (pronounced “ledding”) called leading?
Why is a keyboard’s shift key called a shift key?
What is a “splicer” and why was it important to media?
Who was John Cameron Swayze?
Where did the term “hyperlink” originate (long before Apple)?

If you could only answer half of these or fewer, you might benefit by taking a little more time to look back.

When you’re promoting current bands, music and MP3 players, look back and you may discover that the melody or lyrics of a new hit song are an updated version of an old standard or novelty tune of the 1940s.

When you’re having conversations with editors, understanding the methodologies and equipment they and their predecessors used in the 1970s and ’80s may make today’s editorial processes more intelligible.

When a hot new fashion erupts from a popular movie, you could be surprised to learn that same starlet-inspired fashion caused quite a stir in the 1920s.

The past is vast, so how can you get started grounding yourself more deeply in version 1.0 of the current century? You might begin by researching the answers to the dozen questions above. They’re purposely not linked; their value is in doing the homework. In the process, you’ll discover some great sources to help you acquire a quick overview of past people, places and technology, from Wikipedia and Information Please to sites for bios, quotes and entertainment.

With a thorough grounding in the popular past, you may become as successful and famous as Bob Gaudio! One can only hope.

--Steve Friedman is the director of marketing communications at Airfoil, a high tech PR/marcomm agency with offices in Detroit and Silicon Valley. Follow Steve on Twitter @prwritingpro

Gamification – are you ready to play?

2012-07-11T12:40:23-04:00

Are you a gamer? Traditionally, we might think gamers are teens locked away in the basement playing games like Borderlands and Call of Duty for days on end. However, the traditional view of a gamer is changing as games like Farmville and Angry Birds are played every day by mass amounts of people. Even more, games are now being incorporated into classrooms and workplaces and “gamification” is growing as a method to impact everything from employee onboarding to internal sales processes.

Gamification by definition is the use of game theory to engage people in the performance of everyday tasks. Typically, gamification applies to non-game applications and processes to encourage people to adopt them or influence how they are used. Companies are now working to understand how these elements can be incorporated into traditional programs, especially as members of the millennial generation enter the workforce and push their organizations to find new ways to improve participation in activities that are thought to be routine or mundane. And gaming could be that solution.

The goal of gamification is to achieve higher levels of engagement, change behaviors and stimulate innovation. With the prevalence of Facebook, Twitter and Zynga, more and more companies are looking for ways to tap into the social networking and digital worlds to take game elements into areas that are unrelated to games, such as loyalty programs or sales training. In fact, according to Gartner, it is estimated that by 2015, more than 50 percent of organizations that manage innovation processes will apply gamification to those business processes.

The opportunity for businesses looking to use gamification is great, but is it a good investment?

Recently the Wall Street Journal spoke with gamification author Gabe Zichermann about whether gamification is a passing fad or a legitimate business investment. Zichermann explains that one of the biggest misconceptions, causing some to think this is a fad, is that “we’re trying to turn things into a game.” The goal is to use the best technologies being created through games to create engagement and change behaviors.

The idea for gamification is based on the fact that we are not a society free from structure, rewards, or penalty for bad behaviors, says Zichermann. Gamification is simply tapping into those natural instincts we have to keep score to motivate today’s workforce and can prove to be a strong tool for any company looking to improve even the most mundane tasks. Here is a sampling of a few games that companies are providing to their employees and customers:

SalesForce’s Sales Contest Builder – game created to inspire healthy competition between sales employees
Foursquare – organizations and brands can use badges to give gaming opportunities to customers
Microsoft Xbox Live – while this is a gaming platform, they have been able to take their product even further with Gamertag where gamers can compete against other gamers for bragging rights

Are you ready to join the ranks and make gaming a larger part of your organization? Share your feedback and if you think there is a place in business to play games.

-- Christine Kunde is a closet gamer and account executive at Airfoil Public Relations, a high tech PR agency with offices in Silicon Valley and Detroit.

The Airfoil blog is à la mode, and other insights from a ‘newb’

2012-07-09T11:47:22-04:00

After learning that blogging at Airfoil was a hot trend, I knew I wanted to start contributing. I opened up a new Word doc in an attempt to start writing my first post. Immediately, I started sweating dreading the thought of my new fellow ‘foilers and other blog readers not only reading what I produce from various combinations of 26 letters, but judging my diction and grammar, too. Let’s be honest, us grammar competent PR people inevitably half read and half edit at all times. These thoughts were treading through my mind while the blank page on my monitor simultaneously seemed to be getting bigger and whiter.

Since I didn’t exactly know what to write about, I brainstormed. I thought about recounting the details of the wonderful and intelligent people I have met here – but ultimately ruled that out; there are too many people to write about. On the other hand, I could highlight the new technology, policies and clients I’ve learned about – but that didn’t seem exceptionally groundbreaking given that any new employee has to learn these sorts of things (side note: the technology we use and clients we service are honestly exciting). Adhering to the old adage of “write what you know” I decided to explore some of the topics that every recently graduated professional, no matter the industry, has to face. Ready, set, go!

The business of being business causal

I recently read an article in Forbes that entirely explains my daily dilemma: how do I know what the dickens to wear to work? Yes, we’re a business casual workplace - but if I emphasize the “business” part of business casual, I look like a teen girl playing dress up in her fashionable mother’s work clothes. Conversely, if I highlight the casual, how do I maintain a distinction between work clothes and everyday clothes? I thought about tons of different outfit combinations and realized I was getting desperate when I started to seriously consider wearing my egg costume to work (side note: apparently Gwen Stefani owns it, too).

Ultimately, I would advise recent grads to watch what everyone else at your workplace is wearing. For the first week I dressed to the nines daily to make a good first impression. After that, I modeled myself after other people’s wardrobes that I liked, while keeping in mind my own personal style. Now, I try to strike a balance between business and casual.

The art of walking in and out

Maybe this makes me sound too “recent grad,” but besides the coffee maker (it’s a Keurig!) and endless snack supply (seriously mind-blowing), what else astonishes me on a daily basis is that I come to work and no one calls out my name from the attendance list, I don’t swipe my student ID and I don’t find my manager to make sure someone knows I’m “P” (present). When I leave for the night, I merely walk out. It may sound trivial, but it’s not.

The bigger picture is that it means my employer expects and trusts that I am putting in my time. It means Airfoil isn’t my babysitter and isn’t trying to hold my hand. On my end, it means that I’m accountable for myself. Skipping a day of work is obviously not like skipping class (not that I ever did that…). Honestly, I enjoy being held accountable for myself and the hours I work. I am officially living in “the real world,” so I should act like it.

Lessons from the infamous 1:1s

As a “newb,” I talked with several ‘foilers with different titles and different experiences during “get to know” you meetings we call a “1:1.” I’d like to share some of my favorite tips that all recent grads might find valuable.

- From Megan S: Pitch from your desk. Pitch fearlessly. Be flexible. Think of all possible options before asking a question (not that asking questions is a bad thing, she notes). Allowing people to hear and learn from you and vice versa creates a culture of education, no matter what industry you’re in.

- From Sadie K: When put on a new team, it’s important to ask questions so you know your role, how often to report back and client goals and expectations. Doing so gets expectations on the table and helps you find your pace and helps with time management. Make connections with your managers. They want to hear from you.

- From Mary B: Don’t get distracted by your computer or phone during meetings; it’s easy to tell when someone’s not paying attention. Always listen, always be present. Your coworkers and your clients deserve your attention and respect.

Fin

Well there you have it— my insights into the professional, “real” world after college. What advice would you add to this list? What was the biggest change you experienced in your first professional role after school?

-- Jamie Favazza is an intern at Airfoil Public Relations, a high tech PR agency with offices in Silicon Valley and Detroit.

Foul-Mouth Ted Stirs Ruxpin; Real Victim Snuggle, Mascots Everywhere!

2012-07-05T11:27:20-04:00

Aside from surprising some parents, Ted, the movie, awakened Teddy Ruxpin from its ‘80s hibernation. Ruxpin’s creator is miffed and horrified that his bear, who promoted stories about friendship and love, now guzzles beer and swears like a sailor.

I contest that it’s The Snuggle Bear from the fabric softener commercials and his creators that should be complaining. The resemblance is definitely there and The Snuggle Bear has much more to lose reputation wise.

See the comparisons for yourself. Aside from this whole bear-brawl, it was a rough week for mascots. A French track star assaulted an innocent mascot while she was trying to hand him a gift bag after the race. Ouch! Perhaps mascots worldwide should approach the UAW and organize. It’s a thought…or just hire a great PR firm.

-- Leah Haran is Senior Vice President, Client Services at Airfoil Public Relations, a high tech PR agency with offices in Silicon Valley and Detroit.

What to Expect from Generation Z

2012-07-03T10:53:39-04:00

To me, the term “Generation X” has always suggested mystery—most appropriate, I can confirm from having fathered two members of this crowd. “Gen Y” sounds like a question—also apropos, since these Millennials seem to question traditional workplace processes and revel in “What’s on your mind?” posts, tweets and text.

So where does that leave “Generation Z”—the term we might use for post-Y youngsters born over the past seven to 10 years? Will they be the sleepy generation? Probably not. But we might end up calling them the Zoomers, an homage to their Boomer grandparents.

Zoomers are being socialized in a very different world from that of their parents—who adopted new technology and created new online services every other month—and their parents’ parents—who reveled in their own invention in the form of the Internet, chat, online games and e-commerce. Here are six phenomena we might witness as the Z Generation fashions its own place in a maturing 21^st Century:

While many Millennials never dialed a phone or heard a busy signal, Zoomers won’t use phones at all. Gestures will command their wearable devices to communicate standard messages and any actual voice communications will take the form of wireless gesture-initiated transmissions by tiny video-based devices.
When a Zoomer meets someone new, he will automatically call up and project that person’s profile on his shirt via smartphone-driven data and a necklace-mounted projector.
The Gen Y collector of comic books and anime will give way to Gen Z collectors of newsprint and lavish magazines. Print media will become a nostalgic artifact, with publications valued less for their historical significance than for their distinctive textures, weights and imagery.
No longer will new employees need to convince managers and IT staff to allow them to bring their own communications devices to work. Business systems will be fully virtualized and cloud-based, and the tools that individual employees use at home will be indistinguishable from those employed on the job.
A corollary to #4, “going to the office” in the future will become as ludicrous a phrase as “sitting down to breakfast with the family” is today. Companies will be distinguished by their teams, rather than their corporate architecture, and those teams will work in multiple environments, close to clients, customers or resources, employing collaborative technology. What offices remain will be reserved primarily for IT staffs as locations to interface with their cloud-based technology.
Driving will become an increasingly optional activity in which the Gen Z population will engage for entertainment, much as earlier generations may have enjoyed a spin at the go-kart track. Without the need to commute, with online shopping for everything but the basic bread and milk trips, and with self-driving vehicles available for vacations, family visits and supermarket shopping, Gen Z’ers will do just fine standing on their own two feet—with their own tuned technology.

The seeds for most of these activities already have been planted, while others are educated guesses. One thing that won’t change, however, is the competitive nature of the human population. So those who Z-z-z will be those who lose. Maybe they’d prefer to be called the Mid-Millennials.

--Steve Friedman is the director of marketing communications at Airfoil Public Relations, a high tech PR agency with offices in Detroit and Silicon Valley. Follow Steve on Twitter @prwritingpro

Charitable giving is on the rise…but are nonprofits?

2012-06-28T11:35:30-04:00

Is it more important for organizations to communicate when economic times are good or bad? It’s a conversation I’ve had with many businesses, especially over the last few years as clients debate the relative value of their investments. Maybe not surprisingly, my answer is a valid “both.” However, nonprofits face a different set of communication challenges when our economy – and funding – fluctuate.

Coming off several years of downward giving trends, it’s awesome to read the recently released GivingUSA 2011 report detail positive gains in both individual and corporate giving in the last year. Great news, right? Sure, but nonprofits still have a steep hill to climb because most spend money the year after they earn it. So, when the broader economy or even, specifically, charitable giving improves, the nonprofit recovery suffers from a systematic lag.

But nonprofits can meet this challenge with communications. I was honored recently to have a discussion around these issues with a group of graduate students seeking a nonprofit management certification. I shared with them some communications best practices that can help them close the gap between giving levels and nonprofits’ recovery, including these:

Social media delivers high ROI for resource-strapped organizations. Facebook and YouTube enable nonprofits to highlight what they’re doing with donations via announcements and video testimonials; monitoring tools like Hootsuite give nonprofits a view into when supporters are Tweeting about them (and what content is compelling enough that it’s being reTweeted); and tools like Razoo leverage the exponential power of a nonprofit’s supporters to put more fundraising feet on the ground.
Short-term pain = long-term gain. In the long-run, investment in technology can be both the most economical and impactful way to communicate. Web-based services and specialized software allow organizations to slash or eliminate the hard costs involved in printing and distributing newsletters and other marketing materials. Through technology nonprofits can build a low-cost but high-quality website as an information hub; form specialized communities among members; or extend of the organization’s physical space to the virtual world (or all of the above!).
Audiences connect with humanized brands. A nonprofit’s value proposition is the impact it has on humans, families and communities. Organizations need to be sure that the public sees that “face” in all the nonprofit communicates. Story-telling – done through pictures, video, text and infographics - helps donors or potential donors identify with cause and see the tangible influence of their giving.
Data validates the vision. Nonprofits can leverage research (proprietary or otherwise) to strengthen and clarify their value proposition for the community and organizational competency. There are many effective, free survey tools like Survey Monkey available. Results from surveys of constituents, community members and donors can be visually represented and shared in infographics and videos, or leveraged in annual reports, monthly e-newsletters, social media updates, and direct mail promoted to partners and referral sources.

Can you think of other for-profit communication practices that nonprofits can use to climb the hill to recovery? Share your ideas…crowd-sourcing is another efficient way nonprofits can gather information!

-- Janet Tyler is a co-CEO at Airfoil Public Relations, a high tech PR agency with offices in Silicon Valley and Detroit. Follow her on Twitter @Janet_Tyler

Bibliomania: Summer Style

2012-06-27T13:46:09-04:00

Have you been searching madly for a good book to keep you up nights, curl up with on the hammock or enjoy during a leisurely day of sailing? Look no further. Airfoil’s eBay Trading Assistant team – comprised solely of self-declared bibliomaniacs (loosely defined as those with an “excessive fondness for acquiring and possessing books”) – have searched high and low through dusty stacks and electronic libraries to bring you this Summer Reading List of the Biblio-Obsessed. Happy page turning!

From the Library of Caitlin Cassady

The book you’re too embarrassed to read in public, but it’s so good you do it anyway

20-Something, 20-Everything: A Quarter-life Woman’s Guide to Balance and Direction, Christine Hassler

The book you give to the family literati as a gift

The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

The book you should re-read once a year

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

The book that makes you become a bit of a conspiracy theorist (and chess master)

The Eight, Katherine Neville

The book your man-friend makes you read and you secretly love

Sahara, Clive Cussler

From the Library of Lisa Turner

(aka The Literary Elitist’s Guide to Summer Reading)

For the Jay Gatsby in you

Rules of Civility, Amor Towles

For the Sookie Stackhouse in you

The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova

For the Ophelia, Regan or Lady Macbeth in you

The Weird Sisters, Eleanor Brown

For the Lady Brett Ashley or Jake Barnes in you

The Paris Wife, Paula McLain

For the Hermione Granger in you

Discovery Witches, Deborah E. Harkness

From the Library of Jamie Favazza

For American lit lovers

For Whom The Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway

For history buffs

Maus, Art Spiegelman

For thinkers

Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle

For French speakers

Kiffe kiffe demain, Faïza Guène

For poets

The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry, edited by Mary Ann Caws

From the Library of Kate Eidam

For the writers and journalists among us

Going to See the Elephant, Rodes Fishburne

For the closet Vulcans

Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card

For (wild) animal lovers

The Daily Coyote, Shreve Stockton

For short story fiends

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Alice Munro

For the poets who didn’t know it

The Trouble with Poetry, Billy Collins

Agree? Disagree? Have your own summer reading recommendations? Please let us know here, on Facebook or at @airfoilpr.

When Caitlin, Lisa, Jamie and Kate don’t have their noses buried in books or flipping pages on an e-reader, they hang out at their day jobs (which helps fund the cost of the book obsession) at Airfoil, a high-tech PR and marketing communications firm with offices in Silicon Valley and Detroit.