Is “reach out and touch someone” dead?

Has our obsession with electronic devices become more alienating to family relationships than even the teen years?  And what are the implications for client/customer relationships?

Alex Williams’s cover story “Quality Time, Refined,” in the Style Section of The New York Times earlier this month, raised these questions.  The writer described one of the families featured in the piece, who happened to be from Huntington, New York, where my Long Island public relations firm is based, as exhibiting a toddler-like phenomenon of parallel play, with parents and kids each absorbed in his or her own hand-held or lap-nestled technology during “together time” on the family couch. 

The voracious appetite for amusement and entertainment -- both stimulated and satisfied by today’s technology -- presents opportunities and challenges alike to the public relations practitioner. The opportunity lies in the countless outlets eager for content; the challenge is directing the right traffic to your message.  Every day at Epoch 5 Public Relations, we form new e-relations—through Facebook, Twitter and Skype; with bloggers; by texting; and yes, with people we meet IRL (in real life) and talk to on the phone. 

Over the last decade, how we communicate and relate to each other has transformed at a dizzying pace. Thanks to Facebook, the very definition of “friend” has changed, seemingly irrevocably. But one thing remains the same: as human beings, we need physical contact, even if it’s just tapping each other occasionally, as one couple interviewed for Williams’s article does while gazing at their screens. 

Perhaps that decades-old AT&T slogan, “reach out and touch someone,” is not dead yet.  

Written by Kathleen Caputi

Giving your best performance on the blogging stage

Blogging is becoming more and more popular. But what’s the point of blogging when no one is reading? Think of blogging as a concert and you are the musician; you perform to entertain your viewers. Chris Brogan suggests a few ways to effectively perform your blog: 

 

Be Brief
If you can say it faster…do so. 

Appeal to Their Sense of Self
Can you tell a story that will help your audience think of themselves? 

Be Prepared
There’s no pressure in writing good posts. It’s your choice to produce good content. Think ahead by keeping a notepad with a few extra ideas. 

Be Respectful
Your audience is brilliant and you sometimes know something they don’t. Blog as if you’re just sharing this information with them, not lecturing them. 

Be Conversational (and yet Concise)
Talk as if you’re having a conversation with someone. Keep things tight and don’t fret over it. Practice by posting once or twice a day.

Performance
No matter how you view your blogging, you’re on a stage performing. It’s the same thing, sliced differently. There’s no reason to treat blogging differently. 

 

 

 

When the Flicks Come to Life

What a dramatic week – it’s been like watching non-stop re-runs of potboilers, romances and disaster movies – only these were real.  We had tragedy, intrigue, surprise finishes and even a kiss or two along the way.

First we had the unspeakable tornadoes that ripped through the South killing more than 300 people with scenes straight out of Twister.  Then we had Prince William’s fairy tale royal wedding, a real-life Cinderella meets Love Actually.  Finally, Sunday’s breaking news that Osama bin Laden had finally been killed was like Under Siege with elements of Black Hawk Down.

Like many of us looking for an escape, I love going to the movies.  Romantic comedies rank pretty high, but action thrillers that transform this Long Island publicist, wife and mom into a CIA operative or Navy Seal duty-bound to save the world, are what really fuel me to spend my hard earned money on a Saturday night babysitter. 

So it’s no surprise that Sunday’s news about the Navy Seals team that killed the most wanted man in the world, in a covert, swiftly executed, 40-minute firefight with no U.S. casualties, has left me captivated.  When the Hollywood version is ready, I’ll happily put down my eight bucks to be engrossed by every detail of how these fearless soldiers pulled off this perilous feat. 

Sometimes, it seems like there’s no fixed line between the output of Hollywood and the world’s newsrooms – add public relations with its own shaping of reality, and the lines are further blurred.  As one of my generation’s heroes, John Lennon, aptly said, "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."

Written by: Audrey Cohen