MEETINGS
Nothin' but Net: March Madness on the 39th Floor
In today's around-the-clock business and political environments, a well-defined, aggressive and disciplined online presence has to be a key component of every organization's game plan. New Orleans-based Charles Pizzo, a former board chairman of both IABC and its Research Foundation and a "guru of online public relations" (to quote PR Week Asia), has a playbook full of winning strategies, and they'll all be in plain sight at the March IABC meeting.
Pizzo, a columnist in Ragan's PR Intelligence and frequent quotee in O'Dwyer's and Melcrum's Business Communicator, will coach participants through a morning of practical revelations -- how to research stories on the Internet and set up an Internet newsroom; dealing with rogue sites (and how not to succumb to PRanoia) -- then slip on his speaker's hat at lunch to present examples of great communication in action and how to assess one's own style.
Time & date: workshop 9-11:30 a.m., lunch 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, March 2
Place: Petroleum Club, Carter-Burgess Plaza, 777 Main St., 39th floor
Parking: $2.50 in parking garage at Seventh and Commerce streets (get ticket validated)
Cost: $30 members, $60 nonmembers; workshop only $20 members, $40 nonmembers; lunch only $17 members, $22 nonmembers
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Jump in Car, Drive to Irving
There's no chapter luncheon in March, but members are encouraged to attend the Southwest District Conference on March 25-26 at the Harvey Hotel in Irving, sponsored by the PRSA Greater Fort Worth and Dallas chapters. Sessions will explore emergency/crisis communications; measurement and evaluation; strategic planning; investor, employee and community relations; diversity; integrated marketing on the Internet; event planning; reality TV; and, as is invariably the case, more!
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Program topic and location to be announced.
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STRAIGHT STUFF
Call Kate Mewhinney at (817) 336-2491 ext. 222 to buy a copy of the Fort Worth Chamber's updated Media Directory, the only comprehensive media list for the FW area. The directory also will be available at PRSA and IABC meetings, or go to fortworthchamber.com and click on Publications for Sale to order online. It comes printed or on disk (Excel and PDF files) and covers print media in Tarrant, Johnson, Parker and Hood counties, as well as television and radio contacts for the entire Metroplex. Listings include e-mail addresses, fax numbers, circulation figures and distribution areas. Cost for Chamber members is $30 print, $35 disk, $55 both; for nonmembers it's $40 print, $45 disk, $65 both. Chamber Gold members get $10 off member prices. ...
Executives from Cingular, RadioShack, the Star-Telegram, Sewell and Sabre Holdings will discuss how they fight for customer loyalty in today's competitive business world at a panel discussion on the TCU campus Tuesday, March 9. A 5 p.m. reception in the Dee J. Kelly Alumni and Visitors Center, 2820 Stadium Drive, will precede a Q&A session led by TCU marketing professor Bill Cron. Cost is $20 at the door, $10 students, with proceeds benefiting the M.J. Neeley School of Business. ...
"The Essentials of Investor Relations," a half-day seminar sponsored by the D-FW chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute and aimed at PRSA and IABC members, will be 7:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Friday, March 12, at the Park City Club, 5956 Sherry Lane, 17th Floor, Dallas. Speakers include local IR practitioners and legal specialists from Jackson Walker LLP, Inet Technologies, C. Bell & Associates, and The Gorton Group. RSVP deadline is 4 p.m. March 8. To register by phone or e-mail, contact Serena Fischer at (972) 458-9555 or serena.fischer@businesswire.com. To register online: regonline.com/?12264. ...
If you're a PR pro with three or fewer years in the business, does Adrienne Gaviglio have a deal for you. As director of PRSA's just-formed Nu Pros, she promises monthly social hours, a dial-a-mentor program and, soon, a national Web site for new PR professionals. More at gaviglioa@aol.com. ...
For an effective, inexpensive way to reach a pool of PR pros, area companies have the Communicators' Job Bank. Cost is $50 per online listing. Reach coordinator Lauren Olson at lolson@law.txwes.edu. ... Need to punch up those news releases? Ann Wylie offers a Q&A with Silver Anvil winner John Armato, "Yes, You Can Make Your News Release Creative," at wyliecomm.com/press_room/tipsheet_Armato.shtml.
SPJ national update: No overseas electronic voting after all, and hey, publishers have feelings, too. The Pentagon has scrapped an Internet voting system for overseas U.S. citizens over uncertainty about "the legitimacy of votes that would be cast.'' Computer security experts had urged the move, saying that hackers could change votes or gather information about users. ... While their newsrooms strive to provide all-sides coverage of the 2004 elections, leaders of the nation's largest papers are busy contributing to candidates. Campaign finance records filed with the Federal Election Commission show that more than 100 journalists and executives at major media companies, from NBC's top executive to a Fox News anchor to reporters and editors for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, CBS and ABC, have made political contributions in recent years. Some of the donations violate the companies' own policies. Richard Scaife, the conservative publisher of the Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh, tops the list with $25,000 to the Republican National Committee last July; he also gave $2,000 toward George W. Bush's reelection and $4,000 to the U.S. Senate bid of Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Pat Toomey. More here and here.
SPJ national update II: Sex at Cambridge, sex at Flagstaff, and sex within the boundaries of marriage but not right now. Harvard administrators are thinking twice about a student magazine that would feature nude Harvardites. The Committee on College Life approved H Bomb for official status Feb. 9. Media buzz triggered the reconsideration. To avoid liability, students would not be allowed to take nude pictures inside Harvard buildings. H Bomb draws inspiraton from Squirm, a Vassar College erotica magazine that features nude coeds. "Much depends on the values of the editors," noted religion lecturer Brian C.W. Palmer. "Quite possibly the magazine will sell, as so much else sells, by commodifying women's bodies and including an occasional half-nude man as an alibi." Asked if the magazine might generate considerable attention, administrator Paul J. McLoughlin said: "I guess I can't imagine that it won't." ... Student writer Claire Fuller's Feb. 12 column for The Lumberjack that offered a graphic guide on performing a sex act has prompted a March 5 meeting between administrators at Northern Arizona University and the school's publication board. Provost Liz Grobsmith said the president received many calls from people "deeply offended." More here. ...
