Stepping on stage

I’ve never pictured myself performing in front of a live audience. After all, I’m not an actor, musician, or lecturer (not yet anyway). However, last week in Nashville, my perspective was turned on its head. In this case, the stage was the Frist Center and the performers (if I can call them that) were two authors focused on creative service firms, David C. Baker and Blair Enns. They spoke of the dynamics of successful relationships between firms and their clients or prospects. Most importantly, when initiating new business. Read more

Sharing Secrets: Public Relations Expertise

The publishers of Brand Republic, the UK’s leading online destination for people working in the advertising, marketing, media and communications industries, offer an editorial on their website entitled “What’s the secret of a long ‘marriage’?” In that, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO chief executive Farah Ramzan Golant offers these wise words: “The key to long-term client relationships is constant reinvigoration…. You should constantly be looking at how you can do things differently, keep freshening the account teams and stay ahead of the game.” As a PR practitioner providing ongoing, dedicated counsel to a small roster of clients, I firmly believe in these vows, and back in December, I participated in an enlightening webinar hosted by Vocus and presented by PR industry thoughtleader Deirdre Breakenridge, who is the author of “PR 2.0” and “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.” Entitled “Eight Techniques of the New PR Champion,” the knowledge and insights Deirdre shared really blew me away. Read more

Forces for Good: Martin Luther King, Jr. (and you!)

We are immensely grateful for the service of Mr. King, his father and mother Martin and Alberta, everyone in his family, and everyone giving what they have to keep his dream alive.

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Primer for the new year

For me personally, this is the time of year when business takes center stage after many weeks of relative inaction. In my experience, strategic focus is essential at this moment in order to maximize the best opportunities while also understanding all the real imperatives of success and ensuring they are given top priority today and tomorrow.

Fortunately, I have many wise, experienced friends and counselors who have provided a virtual MBA of priceless information, motivation and inspiration over the past few weeks for free. Here are six links I feel are very likely to help your upcoming actions soar in the right directions. Some lead to articles, some to eBooks; each is highly recommended. Read more

Giving season: Heroes

Together with my family, I am sending my warmest thoughts to many friends and colleagues worldwide, and feeling a lot of gratitude. I truly appreciate your help in sending daily clicks to www.hungersite.com, where our simple mouseclicks can benefit a number of vital causes each and every day.

Giving season: Love

In the video above, in his own words, Narayanan Krishnan says, “I thought, what is the purpose of my life? What am I going to do? …And I quit my job and I started feeding all these people from 2002.” And later: “There are thousand and thousands and lots and lots of people suffering. What is the ultimate purpose of life? It’s to give. Start giving. See the joy of giving.“

I have done some research on homelessness over the years, and we all know that there are displaced people living on the city streets everywhere in America. The organizations and initiatives highlighted below represent just some of the many phenomenal community efforts supporting homeless people in the U.S. and elsewhere. I found many of them through JustGive.org, and I’m also proud to point you to this list JustGive publishes, entitled 35 Ways You Can Help the Homeless. They list as item 7, “give money,” and to that, I’ll add my plea to give whatever you have to spare (from loose change to your time), to those people you see in need.

Also, it’s the time of year when I invite you to join me in sending daily clicks to www.hungersite.com, where our simple mouseclicks can benefit a number of vital causes each and every day.

Thank you!

Leviathan’s magical holidays

This spot for the Illinois State Lottery was produced by Energy BBDO in Chicago, directed by Dom Bridges of Bob Industries, and features visual effects from design-focused production studio Leviathan. As Leviathan’s Jason White recently explained to SCREEN Magazine:

“We appreciate this engaging story. Something we can all relate to. Effective and emotive. We really got behind the aspiration of the spot concept – capturing these amazing gift revealing holiday moments.”

Today, White and his colleagues reported on their very successful 2011 in SHOOT Magazine. Here’s wishing you many magical moments and dreams come true over the days ahead.

Ewasko: Days and Lights

Tommy and I are very proud to announce that our book “Ewasko: Days and Lights” — which was nominated for Blurb’s “People’s Choice Award” — is now available as an instant ebook download for Apple iBooks (iPad/iPhone).

We’re also very psyched to announce the release of the first wave of high-quality art prints and photographic products of images featured in “Ewasko: Days and Lights.” By visiting RKDfind Ewasko Gallery you can now order prints with mounting and framing services from Mpix Lab and Photobox, and specialty gifts and photo products from vendors such as IYP Photo Products and fotoflot.

If you have any questions on orders, please call me at 1.828.264.8898. Thank you very much for your interest in this project — we hope you enjoy these images and we look forward to hearing from you any time.

Needham Rising

This has been an eventful year for everyone at global creative agency ATTIK, including its co-founder and executive creative director Simon Needham. The San Francisco Egotist is currently featuring a brief article Simon contributed entitled, “What I learned this year.” He also shared some career advice with the publishers of Creativepool.co.uk back in November in this ‘5 minutes with Simon Needham‘ article. I thought you might also enjoy the in-depth video interview embedded above. From ATTIK’s humble origins in northern England, Simon’s obviously come a long way, and he has many exciting developments shaping up for 2012 and beyond. For more information, please visit www.attik.com.

Killer reels: B-Reel

Founded in 1999 with full service offices in New York, Los Angeles, London and Stockholm, B-Reel specializes in the field of advanced digital productions on multiple platforms including web, mobile and out-of-home media. They collaborate with sister company, B-Reel Films on integrated campaigns. B-Reel Films is a traditional film production company.

B-Reel swept the 2011 Cannes Lions’ Awards with a Cyber Grand Prix, a Golden Lion and three more awards from its 15 nominations, and in July, it was named the most awarded digital company in the history of the prestigious FWA Awards. Since November of 2005, B-Reel has earned 57 Site of the Day honors.

For more information, visit www.b-reel.com and @B__REEL