Preparing Your Spokesperson

Here are six techniques your spokesperson can use to convey positive messages, even when questions get difficult:

- Use key messages as a base to generate fresh answers to questions. Use conversational language. Support your assertions with data and stories to illustrate why your service is newsworthy.
- Don’t introduce controversy unprompted. Avoid going off on the needless tangent by keeping answers short. When your spokesperson has finished answering, he or she should stop talking and await the next questions. Also remember to focus replies around one theme or key message.
- Good planning is vital to avoid divulging too much information. Pausing to collect thoughts is a good way to avoid confusion or raising a negative subject. Think of an answer as an essay. You need an introduction, a body and a conclusion.
- Facial expression is very important. Much credibility is judged this way. To look more engaged and professional, sit upright in the chair, make eye contact and smile. Hand gestures can convey passion for the topic and emphasize messages.
- Speaker credibility is also judged on the way you talk. It is important to be aware of tone. Make sure the topic being discussed matches the emotional quality you project in your voice.
- Building bridges is an effective way to handle negative questions. First acknowledge the topic the journalist raised. Mention the subject so the journalist knows you’ve heard the question. The second step is to use a phrase that builds a bridge from the journalist’s topic to one of your key messages. Use phrases such as “actually” or “I’d characterize that differently.” The final step is to provide a message with critical supporting data points or stories.

These tips will help to expand your spokesperson’s talents and capabilities. Following this advice will greater your chances that newsworthy, positive information is conveyed to the masses.

E-mail Signatures

Signatures blocks are useful for providing important contact information for the people you communicate with on the Internet. And they can also be effective ways of marketing. Use them wisely.

· Provide your email address. Don't assume that just because your email address can be found in the header of the message, it will be found.

· Provide your Web address in link form. This makes it effortless for your correspondents to connect directly to your site.

· Provide a mailing address and appropriate phone numbers for alternative forms of communication.

· Provide a brief marketing message. Set up your signature so that it conveys a glimpse of what your company is all about. Slogans or catch phrases that touch upon your company branding will undoubtedly make your signature memorable. Think of your e-mail signature as your virtual business card.

· Include a link to recent articles that you’ve written or news coverage about your organization. Keep it simple.

· Don’t include a signature in every e-mail reply in a chain of messages. . . .

While attempting to include the most relevant and useful information, try to keep your signature to eight lines or less. If it’s too verbose, e-mail readers will avoid it. E-mail signatures are a great way to take advantage of subtle, free marketing opportunities.

Philadelphia Bench Bar Conference – Underlying Media Theme

I attended the Philadelphia Bar Association Bench-Bar Conference last weekend in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and found it quite interesting that in many of the panels – it was publicity and the law that was a recurring theme.

Some of the myriad topics included:

o The need of the Judiciary to be more public
o The affect of blogging on Judicial elections
o The need to use the media to educate the public about the roles of the Court
o The need to control/respect the power of the media
o The role the media plays in disseminating information about cases
o The need to train the Judiciary about the media and vice versa
o The need for attorneys and judges to understand and utilize the media
o Law school does not teach students how to promote or communicate via mass media
o The cost of judicial elections tried in the media
o The ethics of dealing with the media
o The need to embrace the media
o The issues of fair and impartial trials that are “tried in the media”
o The need for attorneys to be media trained
o How not to be a jerk when dealing with the media
o The opportunities surrounding the media

I left the conference energized and excited about being a strategic communications expert in the legal industry.

It’s a growing field and there’s a lot of ground we need to make up for the last century of “no comment” answers, however, we’re well on our way to a more enlightened industry!

RSS and Atom Feeds for Outlook

Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom feeds provide us an easy way to monitor multiple sources of news, blogs, and other content that is updated frequently. And since, I’m a big PC fan, we use Outlook to manage much of our data. That said, I’ve been interested in subscribing to an RSS aggregator but don’t want to check yet another devise or program on my computer. It’s bad enough that there are more than 100 actionable emails in my in-bin per day. So, why do I want RSS anyway? I know – I guess it’s because I’m a news junkie and I need to stay on the pulse of several industries and reporters.

So I found that Outlook does not directly access or display RSS or Atom content. However, there are add-ons by third-party companies that incorporate RSS and Atom viewing in Outlook. On the Microsoft website, this is what I found:

intraVnews is a state-of-the-art news aggregator that turns Microsoft® Outlook® into an RSS and Atom feed reader. With intraVnews you can subscribe to any of thousands of syndicated feeds from personal weblogs (blogs) to mainstream news sources to specialist publications. You never have to leave Outlook again to keep up with changes on the Web or your intranet. Supports the 2007 Office system. (http://www.intravnews.com/indexoffice.htm)

NewsGator is a news aggregator that runs in Microsoft Outlook®. It allows you to subscribe to various syndicated news feeds (such as Web logs, news sites, etc.) and have news from these sites be delivered right into your Outlook folders. There are thousands of sites that syndicate their content in RSS format, with more being added every day. (www.newsgator.com)

Attensa for Outlook RSS Reader for Microsoft® Outlook® is the smart way to bring up-to-the-minute RSS news and information from Web sites and blogs to Outlook folders. Automatically find and preview RSS feeds. Pick from more than 1000 RSS feeds, and get started fast. Stay on top of news with powerful search tools. Automatically download podcasts. Keep organized with categories and tagging. Import/export OPML files. (http://www.attensa.com/products/outlook/?cp=1)

Newspoint: RSS is the format used to communicate and automate news articles over the Internet. You can set up an unlimited number of RSS feeds, and specify which RSS news feed should be monitored and in which database to insert the information. When the NEWSPOINT tool is running in background on your PC, you can use this news to display it in your Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentations in combination with our DATAPOINT tool. Supports the 2007 Office system. (http://www.presentationpoint.com/microsoft/newspoint.htm)

I settled on NewsGator for $29.95. . . . . .