MEETINGS
Branding Lessons Learned
There'll be a crash course in branding -- what to do, what not to -- at the August IABC meeting from First Command CMO Dennis Holland, the man tasked with rebranding the company while keeping the traditional feel of what its customers had come to trust.
First Command Financial Planning was founded in 1958 and is steeped in tradition. When the business model was changed to no longer cater only to the military but to the public as well, all marketing materials -- brochures, booths, advertising, PR initiatives, web site -- had to be geared toward the new mission. It was vast. It was expansive. And it was exhausting.
Holland will share his secrets of marketing, public relations, building a team, and instituting a strategy and selling it to the execs to create a comprehensive marketing/PR arm of the company.
Time & date: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 28
Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor
Parking: $2.50 in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets
Cost: members $20, nonmembers $25 (online sign-up add $1)
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You Tell Five People, and They Tell Five People, and ...
The August meeting won't be on the usual second Wednesday, nor will it even be in Fort Worth. Greater Fort Worth PRSA will meet with Dallas PRSA on Thursday, Aug. 9, at the Las Colinas Country Club to plumb the intricacies of "Five Simple Steps to Effective Word of Mouth Marketing" with Andy Sernovitz, author of "How Smart Companies Get People Talking." Register here.
Many consider word of mouth marketing the next big thing. But what goes into such a campaign? Learn strategies to engage with consumers and generate positive talk about your brand. Learn the five steps to starting an impactful, effective, sales-driven campaign.
Sernovitz, CEO of the National Word of Mouth Marketing Association, will discuss the ethics involved, while providing tips on whom to hire, where to start and how to make the entire process successful.
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No meeting in August. But book yourself for Wednesday, Sept. 19, at Joe T. Garcia's (actually, La Puertita, the little church across the street), when former AP and Star-Telegram reportorial ace Mike Cochran discusses his new book on the Aggie who would have been governor, Clayton Williams.
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STRAIGHT STUFF
They're excited at the American Society of Business Publication Editors about former Dallas Morning News editor and writing coach Paula LaRocque speaking Wednesday, Sept. 19, on "The Secrets of Good Writing." Details next month. If you can't wait, contact organizer Tonie Auer -- 817-925-2013, tonieauer@gmail.com -- and you can get excited together. ...
Crisp topic, long title. Author Maya Reynolds tells all in "The Do's and Don'ts of Query Letters. Things I Did Right and Things I Did Wrong on the Way to Getting an Agent and Contract" at the Monday, Aug. 20, meeting of the Greater Dallas Writers' League of Texas at the Richardson Public Library, 900 Civic Center Drive. Starts at 7 p.m.; the public is invited. Reynolds is a former teacher, stockbroker, psychiatric social worker and crisis team interventionist.who shares her desk with a 1-year-old kitten, Bob, that guards the right side of her laptop, making the letters U-I-O-P a particular challenge. She is a founder of Passionate Ink, the erotic romance chapter of Romance Writers of America. A year ago, NAL Heat, a division of Penguin, bought her manuscript "You've Been a Bad Girl." More on the Writers' League of Texas from Carol Woods at shurlock@flash.net. Other dates to save: 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 15, "Pitch It," a two-hour workshop; and 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 17 (regular meeting), "The Selling Author," with William F. Lee.
IABC local update: Janet White, author of "Secrets of the Hidden Job Market: Change Your Thinking to Get the Job of Your Dreams," will discuss those secrets at the Dallas IABC meeting Tuesday, Aug. 14. Info here.
PRSA local update: Oct. 20-23 marks PRSA's 2007 International Conference where top professionals in the industry will assemble in Philadelphia to share best practices for an evolving industry. More at prsa.org.
PRSA update II: TCU profs Will Powers and Melissa Schroeder will present "Misunderstandings: Intentional and Incidental" at the 2007 PRSA Ethics in Action luncheon (regular meeting) Wednesday, Sept. 12, at the Petroleum Club. Details next month.
SPJ national update: House panel approves reporter shield law; and win one, lose one in the student press. The House Judiciary Committee on Aug. 1 approved legislation to shield reporters from being forced by prosecutors to reveal their sources. The voice vote sent the bill, sponsored by Reps. Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Mike Pence, R-Ind., to the House floor. Media companies and journalism groups have argued that the measure is needed to keep the public informed about government corruption. The Bush administration says it could harm national security. More here. ... Oregon is giving the high school and college student press back to students. Under a bill signed into law July 20 by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, students are guaranteed free-press rights at their school's newspaper or other media. "Student journalists are responsible for determining content of school-sponsored media," the law states. The law is the first student press rights law to be enacted by a state since 1995, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Student Press Law Center. More here. Meanwhile, First Amendment lawsuits by student journalists at public universities become moot when the plaintiffs graduate, according to a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. The ruling came in an appeal by two former editors of The Kansas State Collegian, who charged that their First Amendment rights were violated in 2004 when the university removed journalism prof Ron Johnson as the newspaper's adviser. More here.
