Stories by Steve Goldstein

Each January in New York, PR News shines a spotlight on women who not only are best in class in PR and brand communications, they are leaders who inspire the next generations of women to rise to the C-suite level at brands, nonprofit organizations and agencies. On Jan. 24, 2017, PR News once again celebrated the Top Women in PR at the sold-out Manhattan Ballroom at New York’s Grand Hyatt.

In her keynote presentation on Jan. 24 at PR News’ Top Women in PR luncheon in New York, Maya Nussbaum, founder and executive director of mentoring organization Girls Write Now, will share with honorees and attendees her thoughts on how to make a real difference as a mentor for the next generation of women.

Reading and writing for uninterrupted stretches of time—and I consider five minutes to be an uninterrupted stretch of time—now seems like a rare, precious gift. This sad fact is a creativity and productivity killer. If you’re a PR pro or journalist or any kind of professional wordsmith, being able to write freely without distraction is the only way to produce anything of real quality. It’s your metier and your meal ticket.

Is there an industry more vulnerable to crises than the airline industry? On the one hand you have the usually catastrophic nature of airplane crashes and terrorist attacks; on the other you have on every plane aggravated, gaseous, claustrophobic passengers packed like Pringles in a tube, armed with smartphones, ready to broadcast to the world any provocation.

If you’re with a B2B company, professional association or government agency, finding your visual identity for Instagram and Snapchat, for instance, might be the subject of weekly, or daily, meetings. These meetings might have proved fruitless. Keep in mind your visual identity can be as simple as a single color. Is there one color that dominates your logo or calls to mind an emotional connection with your product or service?

Instagram might be the best social platform for reaching people who actually like to engage with brands on social media. But there’s only so much a brand itself can do to win followers and inspire engagement. Third-party endorsement from Instagram influencers can make a real difference.

Each December at its Winter Awards luncheon at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., PR News inducts into its Hall of Fame PR professionals who have played longtime leadership roles, serving as sources of inspiration within and beyond the workplace, and helping to redefine and expand the roles communicators play. They’ve poured much talent and many years into the PR discipline, teaching by example.

The stalwart, indefatigable souls behind the best PR and marketing campaigns of the past tumultuous, media-saturated year will get the glory they deserve at PR News’ Dec. 6 Winter Awards luncheon at the historic National Press Club in Washington, D.C. At the luncheon PR News will announce the winners of its 2016 PR People Awards.

Autodesk, producer of 3D design software, is one company that takes the “radiation” approach to YouTube as opposed to the passive storehouse approach. The company devotes much of its communications resources to its YouTube channel, and that devotion has paid off in 220,000 subscribers. The immediate goal for its YouTube channel might surprise you, considering this is a software company we’re talking about.

“When people are under so much pressure to process information, the result is an unstoppable flow of data, an overloaded mind and consequently an analytical mindset,” LEWIS founder and CEO Chris Lewis writes in his just-published book, “Too Fast to Think: How to reclaim your creativity in a hyper-connected work culture.”