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Banafsheh Ghassemi’s passion for using technology to promote empathy can be traced to a turbulent childhood. Ghassemi, the winner of the first annual Robin Carey Connector Award, was born in Iran, where her parents were both politically active members of the resistance during the run-up to the Iranian Revolution. As the revolution intensified, her family was forced to seek refuge in England when she was just 11 years old. And that experience has been central in shaping Ghassemi’s focus on human-centered design.

As PR pros know, media exposure can be a double-edged sword. Most of the time the system works: Stories that deserve to be told are told, and people who make outlandish claims only to gain… Continued

As PR pros know, media exposure can be a double-edged sword. What stories should be picked up and receive coverage and which should be tossed to the scrap heap? And who decides? Certainly we hope “the system” weeds out self-serving publicity hounds, but that doesn’t happen all the time. Unfortunately in our media culture outrageousness sometimes is rewarded. When that happens deserving stories can get crowded out. Here’s our attempt to make sure one good story gets told.

When you’re developing a news release, a good quote can make all the difference in giving character and perspective to your announcement. Once you’ve laid out the what, when, where and who, a quote from a spokesperson fills in the why: why your brand is passionate about an issue, why something needed to be done, why something is significant, why the reader should care.

Veteran PR pro Arthur Solomon has handled PR crises here and abroad, so when he says too many crises are handled poorly he deserves to be heard. In this article he provides tips for avoiding making crises worse. Of course, he whacks at some sacred cows when counseling brand communicators to tell the truth, to respond only when you’re ready and to consider each crisis as a unique event.

“Saturday Night Live” cast member Cecily Strong has joined the speaker roster for the Social Shake-Up, a three-day digital communications conference that will be held May 22-24 in Atlanta, and presented by PR News in partnership with Social Media Today. Strong will be joined onstage by Rob Gregory, president of content and influencer marketing company WhoSay, with whom she’ll discuss how social media conversations have influenced her character choices, impacted her performances and helped build her audience.

Imagine this: attendees at a conference are flocking to a table filled with greeting cards where they can choose among “thank you,” “happy birthday,” and “congratulations” greetings, write something nice (hopefully), lick the envelope and place it in the makeshift, Lucite mailbox. This was the clever idea from American Greetings, which had an executive from… Continued

The post Infusing A Little Analog into Your Digital Life appeared first on PR News Blog.

When was the last time you hand-wrote a thank you card? When was the last time you took out that stack of business cards you collected at an event and called (actually, phoned) those new contacts? And admit that it took a lot for you to resist posting on Instagram that beautiful dessert set before you at last weekend’s dinner.

Imagine this: attendees at a conference are flocking to a table filled with greeting cards where they can choose among “thank you,” “happy birthday” and “congratulations” greetings, write something nice (hopefully), lick the envelope and… Continued

With the swirl of information inundating consumers sometimes important notices get lost. This can be a dilemma for communicators who often are charged with alerting the public about a product recall, an event that can do serious damage to a brand’s reputation. An expert in such matters, Michael Good provides brand communicators with tips for combatting product recall fatigue.