First of all, I’m not even technically Canadian. I’ve lived here since I was three and am a Permanent Resident/Legal Alien/Landed Immigrant. The shopping might be far superior south of the border and they have Trader Joe’s and 99% of my family but Canada is my home and, in my opinon, a far superior place to live. But the biggest way in which the U.S. has Canada beat is in the celebration of July 4th. Independence Day is serious stuff in the States. Everyone has traditions and plans and they do it up right. BBQ, red, blue and white, singing the national anthem, fireworks, family and picnics. It FEELS like a different day, like a special day. And it is.

In Canada, we have Canada Day (try saying it 5 times fast. Now try after a few drinks) on July 1st. We have fireworks. And there are parades and concerts and lots of people do fun stuff. But everyone doesn’t. To most people, it’s a day off work and those darn kids set off firecrakers at night. I grew up in Ottawa which is a great place to be on the 1st and I recommend it to anyone who has yet to experience it. Most of downtown is closed to traffic (something Toronto might consider) and the whole city seems come together. When I was a kid, we used to bike around all day, visiting the various parks with activities such as rope climbing, face painting, craft making and much more. They have educational booths set up and cultural experiences and it’s hot and it’s sticky and crowded and fantastic. At night, we’d grab blankets and drive out to the river, park a million miles away (perhaps we should have just walked from the start? Gas was cheaper back then), trudge in and watch the fireworks.

When I was a teenager, Canada Day meant gathering with my friends at Major’s Hill Park, drinking (sorry, Mom) and generally having a good time. The bars were packed, the buses were free after 10 p.m. (another something Toronto might consider) and it was awesome.

Why am I regailing you of tales from my youth? Because Canada Day falls on a Tuesday this year and some people think it would be a great idea to make it a floating holiday, like Victoria Day (which is always the third Monday of May, so at least it’s consistent). This would mean that we would celebrate Canada Day on the Monday or Friday (depending on which was closer to the day) instead of on the 1st. To this I say “WHAT!?” How is that patriotic? On Breakfast Television this morning I was shocked to hear that Kevin Frankish was in favour of this, trying to sell it. I’ve always liked Kevin but was less than impressed with him and all the moronic viewers who wrote or called in to support him. Just imagine: every year we’d have to CHECK when Canada Day was.

Yes, it is annoying to have to work one day then have one day off but it’s CANADA DAY for chrissakes. It’s July 1st. We are supposed to be celebrating the day that marks the start of this country as we enjoy it today. It’s about the DAY not the long weekend. The reason I brought up the States in this post is that they would NEVER consider making the 4th a “floating holiday.” Why is that? Why the difference? Is it because the U.S. has been around longer? Because they have more people? Regardless of the reason, it’s a fact: July 4th is a bigger deal than the 1st and that is sad. 

To be fair, since I’ve lived in Toronto I haven’t taken part in “official” Canada Day festivities (except fireworks at Ashbrides Bay a few times) but we go to my boyfriend’s cousin’s for a BBQ and it’s become tradition. When I have kids, I hope to instill in them some pride in the day and start traditions they will remember, as my parents did.

So get out there tomorrow and celebrate Canada and how lucky you are to live here. Celebrate for all the people in the world who don’t enjoy a free and independent country, who don’t even know what that feels like. 

Happy Canada Day!

My morning started with a bang. Literally. A squirrel decided to eat some electrical wires coming out of the transformer across the street from my house. Needless to say, at 6:20 a.m., I was not impressed.

Today, I am going to do a roundup of stuff — stuff that I find interesting and that is somewhat germaine to what it is the PR Girlz do.

• In today’s Toronto Star, Bruce Campion-Smith reports how the Harper government controls its communication policies. It is the first report in the Secret Capital series from the newspaper. Harper’s communications policies are anything but open and stand in stark contrast to the federal rules for open access to information.
• Festival de Cannes ends today. Norm Wilner from NOW has been blogging the event from the French sea-side town. Check out the reviews now — you might be able to save yourself from wasting time at TIFF. [For the life of me, I don't know what Lindsay Lohan was doing there, though. Beyond Mean Girls (brilliant writing) and Altman's swan song (she was cast well), has she done anything deserving of Cannes recognition?]
• I want to play a bit with a Google lab release called Google Friend Connect. The server keeps crashing on me.
• Grant Robertson at the Globe and Mail reports on Wikipedia’s business plan and its desire to remain not-for-profit.
• Tim O’Reilly had a funny post on the weekend about Microsoft’s obsession with search.

I’ve been known to be a contrarian. For some reason I like to go against the grain, just for the sake of being contrary. So when I was thinking about Earth Hour and what I really thought of it and considered writing it down, I made myself take a step back and let the thoughts percolate for a couple of days before I committed a long cynical rant to the internet. But after letting it fester a couple of days, my opinions haven’t changed. And after hearing what other’s thought on the radio, or reading what they thought online, I realized I’m not alone on this. I think Earth Hour is a crock.

It made a whole lot of people feel good to participate and allowed a whole lot more to be snide towards people who chose not to take part. It put a lot of pressure on businesses to “do the right thing” by turning off office tower lights and the ones who didn’t were shunned and booed. But did it have any kind of lasting effect? I’m fairly sure office towers were alight last night and will be bright tonight and tomorrow and so on. Lights were blazing again in homes last night, will be tonight and tomorrow (you get the picture). Offices should be turning off their lights on their own. They shouldn’t do it simply to succumb to PR pressure from the World Wildlife Fund. People should be careful about their electricity consumption all the time, not just for one measly hour because the media and your neighbours tell you to.

I do my best to only have the light on in the room I’m currently in. It’s not always easy and I do forget, but I do my best and I’m usually pretty good about it. We recycle A LOT. We have a blue bin for paper, a blue bin for everything else and a green bin for organics. There are a lot of people out there who do far more for the environment than I. There are far more people out there who do far less. Will those people step up and starting monitoring their electricity consumption now? A couple might, maybe for a little while. But not because they have chosen to; because they feel pressured to. And while some might argue that it doesn’t matter how they get there, so long as they do, I would argue that people who do things out of pressure and not willful desire, will not do so for long.

I have a friend who was very eager to take part in Earth Hour. She was going to go down to the concert in Nathan Philips Square and be all involved and take a stand and all that good stuff. And she did do that all that. She also left her computer on while she was downtown and drove a Jeep down there instead of taking public transit. I would venture a guess that she wasn’t alone. To me, those people missed the whole point. They heard “turn out the lights” but didn’t factor in the effect leaving home electronics on and driving has on the environment. We still have a long way to go.

Yes, Earth Hour bought some awareness to the cause, which is always a good thing. But at the end of day when the lights were back on and the city was buzzing with neon signs, did anything really come of it?

I watch Breakfast TV every morning and have done so for quite some time. I like the casual-ness of it, how the hosts make mistakes and roll with it and just look like they’re having an all around good time. When Dina took over for Liza over a year ago, I was all for it. I liked Liza, but was happy with their choice and thought Dina fit in well. She and Kevin get along, I like her interview style, she isvery comfortable in her role without being over the top. She’s also gorgeous. But this morning? She messed up but good.

It all started with a viewer writing in saying that yesterday’s Sunshine Girl in the Toronto Sun looked a lot like Dina. So they showed the picture and well, she kind of does! She had a good chuckle about it and we seemingly moved on. Well, a quick thinking Sun employee called the newsroom at City asking if Dina would be interested in being a Sunshine girl. Now, I don’t necessarily think she should or shouldn’t do it. Not a great fan of the Sunshine Girl. But Dina went a little too far. Kevin pushed it a bit, the audience was supportive, Dina said something along the lines of “my father would never allow it!” and went on and on. And on. She went too far. She tried to backtrack a little and soften the blow.

Like I said, I’m not a fan, but if those girls want to do that, go right ahead. I’m not judging. Dina did. And it became uncomfortable. Kevin managed to keep it light and got some good jokes about muffins in the mix (you had to be there). But overall, if I’m that Sunshine Girl, I’m seriously offended.

 I think she crossed the line and for a successful woman on TV who just happens to be gorgeous? People in glass houses… Just sayin’

Yesterday, Jos and I took a field trip down to the CBC to attend a taping of The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos. I have been to tapings of other shows and the audience is pretty much ignored, except when they need you to enthusiastically clap your hands off. At The Hour, things are refreshingly different, George spends much of the time between segments chatting and interacting with the folks in the audience. In fact after the show finished taping, Canada’a boyfriend, stayed on taking questions from the audience for more than 30 minutes, as they shut down the lights and the crew packed up and headed home.

I also noticed that George doesn’t do any retakes if he makes mistakes. I asked him about this, and he said that it makes for a more approachable style which is less stuffy. This informal style works for him in a big way, he makes the news fun. Seriously, who talks with the elocution and intonation of a news reader anyway. If my brother, Marc is reading this… no, I did not do my “Jim Junkin, CFTO News” impersonation for George!

From a PR point of view, the show’s guest selection process is something to take note of. The producers pitch guests to George and he has final approval. Tired of the MuchMusic days of being assigned to chat up any boy band or act that rolled into town, he only interviews people who he thinks are interesting or will give a good interview. I asked him what percentage of his guests are pitched by publicists or PR firms. I figured it would be less than 50 percent. His answer surprised me, as just one percent of guests get on the show as a result of a PR pitch. So just because your client is in town for a media tour doesn’t necessarily mean he/she will get a hit on The Hour.

If you are in Toronto, and have the time, go see George! Tickets are free but the show usually tapes around 4 PM, so you will have to play hooky or pitch it to your boss as some quality “professional development” time, like Jos and I did

I am always relieved to find out that science is on my side. For instance, while I don’t overdo it, I have always felt a little better after having spent time in the sun. Nothing like turning my face up, closing the eyes and just letting it sink in. I do use sunscreen when I face a major exposure to the rays but generally I take it easy and I’m happy to have a bit of a tan.

This hasn’t been easy the past couple of years. When I worked at a hospital and came in with one of my post relaxing-family-vacation tans the dermatologists and several other doctors could be heard tut-tutting. There are websites devoted to the evils of sun exposure – cancer, wrinkles, dry-as-desert skin. For a while I thought we were going to slip back into the southern belle flawless pale skin look. But no, most people like to have a bit of colour so where does it come from now? Out of a bottle or tube.

Thankfully (for me) the researchers are all over this one and there appears to be some work emerging that says some sun exposure, combined with good amounts of dietary vitamin D may be better for you in the long run. Seems that that vitamin D, particularly the kind that gets into you through unprotected sun-exposed skin, might be providing some protection against the growth of some types of cancers. While skins cancer remains a risk, compared to other forms of this disease it is generally easier to spot and more effectively treated.  Hold on, I am not ready to throw the sun safety thing out the window. For me it means that there may just be something behind why the sun makes me feel better.

And like icing on the cake, another study indicates that Cabernet Savignon might protect me against Alzheimer’s disease. This summer is shaping up to be a dandy. I’ll be fearlessly sitting on my front porch in the late afternoon sun with a glass of wine in my hand defying death and loss of memory all at the same time.

All this proving once again that the media has huge power in its hands when it comes to health story. I hope they have this one right.

I love reading community newspapers. I get one at my home in Toronto. It’s free and while interesting it’s not as good as my two favourites, the Haliburton County Echo and the Minden Times. There is no better way to get to know a community than by what you read – and what you don’t – in a community newspaper.

Sometimes two weeks will pass between my reads (I get them delivered to my mailbox in Minden) and then I have to catch up on the news, gossip, and happenings in the county. Now, there will be a few things missing in the name of community peace and harmony, like the names of those charged with dangerous driving or theft. Until conviction it’s just not fair to “out” these folks in public although this public is small enough that everyone knows or knows how to find out stuff like that. And of course you often don’t read the name of the poor soul who has chosen to implement his “natural selection device” (the snowmobile) and drowned or hit a wall of rock at midnight going 100 kms/hour. 

The reporters are often young grads getting a couple of years experience under their belts before moving on to the daily newspaper grind. I think makes them eager but the country life and newspaper world would probably be a little frustrating if they are the Woodward/Bernstein types. Not that intrigue isn’t a fact of life outside the big city. Rather, it just has a different way of being expressed.

In fact, I find the community media approach to business is a lot like public relations – in the very best way. There is an attempt to be fair, include as much information as possible (thorough coverage of the local skate pageant is guaranteed) and there is a focus on people, real people, doing real things that are important to their lives and communities. Not perfect but on the right track.

First of all, if you’re reading this, my thanks. It has been an exceptionally busy winter and spring for the Girlz, still is actually, and we just haven’t had the time to keep up with the blog.

Now, onto the good stuff.

Everyday I do media monitoring for my clients. Most of you do, particularly at a junior level. If you’re in PR, you’re probably monitoring regularly, as well you should be! Now I don’t know how this was done 10 or even 5 years ago. Quite frankly, I’m not sure I want to know! When I started in this business almost 2 years ago, media monitoring in Canada meant setting up profiles in Infomart, maybe getting Bowdens (sorry, Cision) involved to send you broadcast clips and the odd hard copy of newspaper clippings. If you were properly set up and had all your keywords sorted out, this took 15-25 minutes per day, per client, on average. Let’s call it an hour of your morning.

Soon after I started, blogs started becoming a big deal, especially here at TFC. So I set up my Bloglines account and found many interesting and many useless, blogs on a variety of topics, including those that related to my clients. I started flagging the blogs I thought were particularly helpful and checked them regularly for anything my clients would need/want to see. So tack another 25-30 minutes onto your monitoring time for this. More if you’re commenting regularly.

Let’s toss Google Alert’s into the mix, just for fun. They pop up throughout the day; I try to clear them out 2 or three times a day, flagging the ones I think are worthy. I do a more thorough read-through when I’m doing my daily monitoring. So let’s call it another hour a day.

Now, I’m told that social news is the way to go. Citizen journalists, average joes like you and me are now writing articles all over the world about every issue and imaginable topic. And I’m supposed to keep up with them too? Who are these people? Why do I care what they have to say? If they say something negative about my client, is that as powerful as a negative piece in the Globe or on CTV? Does it merit us PR folk launching into crisis mode to diffuse the situation? I’m going with no. Is a negative piece on one of those sites going to have legs? Not very long ones. Yes, lots of people are reading those sites, but it’s the same people. Outside of this office, I don’t know one person who frequents these sites, who even knows what they are or who cares about them. A lot of people still haven’t caught onto blogs. The HORROR!!!

Media monitoring is one of the most recognized things we do in this business. It’s certainly important and I would argue that the one doing the monitoring knows more about the client’s business than the ones reading what is clipped. Valuable? Absolutely. But it’s not everything; it’s a sliver of what we do. I could blow a monthly retainer doing media monitoring, media scoring, media analysis, but is that value? So where do we draw the line?

At what point do we say enough is enough and concentrate on the more valuable media for our clients? I think an hour a day, per client, is more than enough monitoring. In that time, you should have found the relevant articles, anything that affects their business or their competitors, and learned something about their world. More than an hour and that’s a lot of time drifting from one site to the next, grasping at straws, looking for something, anything, that will make that hour valuable and worth your hourly rate to your client.

Oh, and don’t forget about measurement. It’s how we justify our budgets and clients need to see those reports. How do you measure those sites? Is it comparable to other forms of media? Who decides and what are the guidelines?

If you ask me, that’s a lot of unanswered questions related to social news and social media. Have the answers? Great! Love to hear em.

First of all….I APOLOGIZE for taking so long to post and secondly a BIG THANK YOU to Jos who has been writing some terrific posts and keeping us alive in the blogosphere! 

Now on to my conversation…today I am not ranting on about motherhood (although I must admit I do have some of those posts up my sleeve) today I am writing about the media and in particular the love/hate relationship that media and PR practitioners have.  So often I am asked (by students and colleagues) why the media hate us. Many of us (me included) have been on the receiving end of some not so friendly responses from the media. 

I have seen media destroy PR careers; Not so long ago a columnist in one of our Toronto dailies wrote about a terrible and uncreative PR agency that pitched them a story and proceeded to tell the company to reconsider who is representing them – right in her article! Why would she do this? Is it a power trip that you can ruin someone’s career or watch an agency get dumped? What about the Bad Pitch blog created by reporters to humiliate PR people…we don’t have a blog about the bad stories you write; why are you doing this to us?  

I must admit that many of the reporters and producers that I deal with are quite nice and friendly. But there are a few famous ones in the PR industry that we all know about…I am not naming names today! 

As PR professionals we all know not to call the media and say…”I am just following up on the press release that I sent you today…” and any PR people who are doing this should STOP and find a new career. You are giving all PR people a bad name. 

Media please appreciate that our clients and bosses want results and we need to call you and pitch you an idea. Granted we should be prepared…know what you cover and what you are interested in and be mindful of deadlines. But if we do all those things…can’t you be polite and listen. 

Now the Ying and Yang part…we need each other; that is a given. We need you to write about our clients and you need us to provide you with contacts and background. So why can’t we all get along? 

When I was at Humber, one of the mantras we heard time and time again was to “manage expectations.” Often the news you don’t want out, sells itself. If it’s hard news, your job is done, and not necessarily for the better (depending on the news). If your client wants to have a press conference for something so soft, you know the only people there will be you and the client, best to put the brakes on the idea. Sounds simple, right? But it’s not. What if they’re having an event that is somewhat newsworthy, but they’re expecting everyone from the local community paper to Reuters to attend, while you know that you’ll be lucky to have a few token attendees? How do you tell them? If you do it wrong, it looks like your media relations are terrible and you couldn’t get anyone there. Or worse, that you don’t have faith in the cause and maybe they think you shouldn’t be working on it in the first place.

It’s part of our job, as a PR agency to manage our clients. But it has to be done in a way that the client doesn’t know he or she is being managed. That’s the challenge. You’re not the boss, they are. They say jump, you say how high. They say jump, you don’t say, “well, I’m not really in good jumping shoes, and this floor is a little slippery. The ceiling seems low, I don’t want to hit my head on it.” Not good. You want to look good, you want to show your client not just that you’re competent, but that you are enthusiastic and successful and the best for the job. But if you don’t manage them and their expectations well, you could end up looking just the opposite, often through no fault of your own.

So how do you balance on this thin line? How do you tell your client that while the news is interesting, it likely won’t attract a parade? Because if you don’t manage them properly and they are dissapointed, even if you know it was a success, you failed. Clients pay a lot for our services, and expect great results in return, as they should. So how do you earn the money and the respect at once? I know I’m spinning here. It’s a touch concept to wrap your brain around and translate into cohesive thought. But then again, easy matters never are…

Tips, advice, stories? Love to hear them.