Battle Decks proves mid-Michigan’s got talent

There’s never been much doubt that the mid-Michigan market has a bevy of talented people from many walks of life — but seeing them all come together in their own way to participate and support Mid-Michigan Battle Decks earlier this week really helped prove that.

In case you missed it, Battle Decks is part of a national campaign in which you get up in front of a group to do a PowerPoint presentation that lasts about 3 to 4 minutes — with the kicker being that you have no idea what is in the deck you are presenting. Some of the slides may be serious quotes, another could be an Excel spreadsheet graph, some could be silly pictures.

Mid-Michigan Battle Decks occurred on Nov. 17 at Michigan State University, thanks in large part to the graciousness of the MSU chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America. As the chapter’s professional adviser, I’m a bit biased, but I truly believe this group of talented young people really is going to help the PR profession advance and grow in the years to come. They helped me figure out the venue, offered to let Battle Decks piggyback on their monthly meeting, and then assisted me in promoting the event. Props also to Cravings Popcorn, who came for the PRSSA meeting but then stuck around — with their free popcorn — for Battle Decks.

I lined up four judges for the event. Andy Corner and Ryan Knott are two PR pros from the area, Becky Johns is a recent grad with a bright future ahead of her and Nick Lucido is a nationally acclaimed PR student. To be sure, these folks know talent when they see it, and their judging comments were right on target.

“Smooth and quick on your feet.”

“Very smooth – nice transitions — unflappable.”

“Slightly disturbing but I love your sense of humor.”

These are comments you might normally see from a speaker’s evaluation form when they know what’s on the next slide!

Kudos are due, therefore, to the great contestants who were willing to get up in front of a crowd and just start talking about whatever nonsense I put up on the screen behind them. If you haven’t gotten to know these people by networking via professional groups in town or on Twitter — you are missing out on a great opportunity. The winner for the evening was Charlie Wollburg, but he was followed closely by the other contestants in the scoring. Josh Hovey, Natalie Scott, Dan Hogan, Julielyn Gibbons, Veronica LaDuke, Jessi Wortley Adler, Ivy Hughes and Lauren Leeds should all be proud of how they performed.

If you couldn’t make it to Battle Decks, keep your eyes and ears open for another one coming to mid-Michigan in 2010.

And, in the meantime, you can check out all the presentations on YouTube, courtesy of Good Fruit Video. Which brings me to my last nod to greatness in mid-Michigan. Kraig Westfall and Justin Caine, co-founders of Good Fruit, are entrepreneurs with a young company who are out donating their time and efforts to community events in a way you would expect a much larger, well-funded company to do. These guys are just starting out, but their sense of community and their desire to be there for people because they can help rather than because they can make a buck is one reason I believe we’ll be seeing productions by Good Fruit Video for many years to come. I wish them all the success they can handle.

But enough with what I have to say about all of this. Go enjoy the presentations — but be careful, some of their bullet points are deadly! 

Linking LinkedIn and Twitter: You can—but should you?

Here’s an article I wrote recently for Ragan.com about linking your LinkedIn and Twitter status updates:

Published: 11/17/2009 Linking LinkedIn and Twitter: You can—but should you? By Ari B. Adler If you use networks to different ends, the overlap may be undesirable “You got your chocolate in my peanut butter.” “No! You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!” Those of you old enough to remember that ad campaign for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups can appreciate Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s using the reference when talking about LinkedIn and Twitter status updates getting connected. For the younger readers, just trust that it was clever, fun and enduring—perhaps the very attributes Biz Stone would like people to think about Twitter. LinkedIn now allows you to connect your Twitter account to your profile, to have your Twitter feed sent to your LinkedIn page and to have your LinkedIn status updated via Twitter by simply adding #in to your tweet. Stone and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman are touting it as the greatest thing since, well, since peanut butter cups. They claim it will help people get things done. The question is, what things? Updating Twitter and LinkedIn simultaneously is simple enough, if not the easiest thing to remember when you’re hyper-multitasking and trying to zip off a quick update via your thumbs while waiting for an elevator. But should you do it just because you can? Various descriptions have been coined over the past year to compare all the networking services. The one most frequently used denotes LinkedIn as the office, Twitter as a cocktail reception and Facebook as a backyard barbecue. If that’s the case, should you be connecting all of your status updates from one to the others? If you belong to a social networking group, your reasons for keeping that group of “friends” may be different from the reasons you connect with people in another group. So would you want your status updates and comments to be the same everywhere? That answer would be “no” for Lindsay M. Allen, a professional communicator from Mt. Pleasant, Mich., who is unemployed and relying on LinkedIn as part of her job-search strategy. “I’ve had some version of the same status update [at LinkedIn] for about eight months. I go in and refresh it, but that’s it,” Allen said. “I don’t need LinkedIn to know what I’m saying to Twitter. I need LinkedIn to know I’m looking for a job.” Allen’s comment raises a point that most users should consider. Do you make the same comments and bring up the same topics of discussion at an office meeting as you do at a family gathering, a night on the town with friends or a professional networking event? You probably don’t, and if it’s not something you do in person, then don’t do it online, either. In his book, “Six Pixels of Separation,” Mitch Joel writes, “…digital channels break down the notion of ‘it’s who you know,’ because we all live in a world where we can know everyone—and everyone can know us.” That’s one reason people should think twice before linking all of their status updates together. People we know and people we don’t know can now learn much more about us than ever before, but often it will be learned out of context. If the analogy of the office and the cocktail party holds true, then think about how you behave in those two settings. It’s very likely that what you say and, more important, how you say it will vary from a professional office to a reception after work. That also depends on who is at the reception with you. Peers and colleagues who know you well will understand if you decide to have fun and blow off some steam. Unless you cross some heinous line, what you say after work is unlikely to affect your professional standing with them. But what if you were at a cocktail reception with a room full of strangers? Would they take what you consider fun banter to be a true representation of who you are and how you operate? Joel also writes in his “Six Pixels” book, “LinkedIn is the dark horse of online social networks for professionals. It is amazing and, with some simple tweaks, you’ll be shocked at how quickly it can grow your digital footprint.” That shock Joel writes about could be of another kind—a kind that is likely to do more harm than good. Although some may see it as a time saver to update all your status boxes at once, it’s really akin to just walking into every meeting and social gathering with a bullhorn, shouting out whatever is on your mind and not caring if the people in the room will get it or even care. Or worse, they could be offended by it. That is assuming, of course, that people are actually paying attention to status updates on LinkedIn. The site devotes much less of its screen real estate to status updates than Twitter or Facebook. Status updates have never been the focus of LinkedIn, which may be one reason some folks will decide not to bother with real-time updating. “Considering the limitation of status updates you can see at a time on LinkedIn, it’s a non-issue for me. I haven’t merged them and don’t intend to,” said Ari Herzog, an online media strategist from Boston. “No one uses LinkedIn to check statuses,” said Derek Wallbank, the Washington, D.C. correspondent for MinnPost.com. “You’re updating to the cosmic void.” Ari B. Adler is a professional communicator with experience as a newspaper reporter and editor, as well as a government and corporate spokesperson. He is the communications administrator for Delta Dental of Michigan and an adjunct instructor at Michigan State University and University of Michigan-Dearborn. You can follow him on Twitter at @aribadler.

To APR or not to APR?

I’ve been struggling lately with whether I should advance my education with a formal training program — either by going for a master’s degree or earning an APR (Accredited in Public Relations).

The master’s is very far out of reach, as I see it, based on the cost and the time commitment involved.  The APR, however, is much closer. In the past I just haven’t been convinced that I need it. The accreditation standard seems to mean a lot to people in the profession, but I’m not sure how much it means to clients and employers outside the profession.

That discrepancy aside, I can see where there is value to the APR initials after your name. However, one of the reasons I’ve shied away from trying for my APR  is that I’ve been rebelling against those trying to tell me I need it. I’ve been turned away by some of the attitudes involved. Sometimes I get the feeling that people with an APR are looking down their noses at those of us who haven’t got it. They tend to make new grads think that without their APR, their college education in the PR field is a nice start but doesn’t really amount to much. And they tend to ignore the idea that accreditation through the School of Hard Knocks and the experience a person can gain after doing the job for nearly 15 years (in my case) just doesn’t hold any real value.

I’m sure I’ve just been too sensitive sometimes, but when it comes to the APR, those who want to promote it could use a bit of PR for themselves and those fancy initials after their name.

I attended the Public Relations Society of America International Conference in San Diego recently, where I finally — finally! — heard a good explanation of why a person should consider getting their APR. It was given at a meeting being led by Mary Barber, a PR pro from Alaska. After hearing her explanation, I actually felt like I had a solid reason to get my APR. The way Mary explains it, earning your APR looks good to others, but she primarily did it for herself.

I recorded Mary giving the explanation again so I could share it here with you. I thought it was good enough that I couldn’t do it justice trying to put it into words. So, below is Mary, explaining her position. After you watch the video, I’m betting you’ll want to check out what it takes to actually earn your APR. You can do that at this link.

I’ll see you there.

Some tidbits from PRSA ‘09

I’m in San Diego at the Public Relations Society of America national conference and I attended a session today that I was tweeting from a lot, which tells me there were plenty of good tidbits. I’m going to share the tweeted items and some of my own thoughts with you in this post.

First, however, a tip of the hat to Mike McDougal, vice president of corporate communications and public affairs at Bausch & Lomb. He did a great job packing a lot of information into the session despite being let down by the convention’s lackluster audio/visual capabilities.

So, here are the tidbits and thoughts, in no particular order of importance:

• “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” That’s a quote attributed to Winston Churchill. If that’s how he felt about things back in his era, imagine what he would think of the world we live in today! The session Mike was speaking at was advertised as “how to deal with the 24-second news cycle.” It was a fitting description.

• Through video examples of news broadcasts, Mike proved his statement that “we’re living in a world where ‘unconfirmed’ is the new norm.” That should scare journalists and PR professionals alike. But it also should scare the public. We must find a way to get the news media back to where it values facts above opinion and accuracy over expediency.

• As a matter of being prepared for trouble, Mike suggested that companies should consider using a truth squad with the media to defend themselves against stories that weren’t fact-checked, but also to poke holes in your competitor’s statements. I like the idea; I’m just not sure many reporters won’t just give you the brush-off because you are the competitor. Mike claims it worked when he was at Kodak and they took on some claims Hewlett-Packard was making, so I’ll defer to him on this one.

• Mike also offered a bit of commentary during his session and one item in particular caught my attention. He said, “More and more, the media isn’t reporting news, it’s making it.” Maybe that stuck out to me more than other comments because we had just come from the convention’s opening general session where we heard from Arianna Huffington. She noted that in order for a story to be picked up by the media anymore, it has to have “drama.” Are we letting the media focus too much on the dramatic? Why can’t solid information still be considered newsworthy? Why the drama, drama, drama? I was watching the news this morning in my hotel room and caught a piece on CNN where they were conducting interviews about an interview FOX News did recently with Rush Limbaugh. So, essentially, CNN was doing an interview about another network doing an interview. What was the point? From what I could tell, it was to show the world that CNN is more newsworthy than FOX – but if that’s how they are going to try to prove it, then they’ve already failed.

• As I mentioned earlier, part of Mike’s session was talking about the “24-second news cycle.” To deal with that, Mike suggested having some evergreen news ready to push out online as a way to either push your unflattering news out of the way or to push your competition’s good news aside and get your news into the cycle as well. It’s not a bad strategy to consider, but I’m wondering if it’s really getting you in and out of a news cycle or just impacting organic search. Even affecting searches has merit, but I think that’s different from news distribution.

• At Bausch & Lomb, they “deputize employees” to have help monitoring the news and reviewing what it means to the company and its customers. That’s an awesome idea. To keep up with today’s crazy glut of nonstop information, it would be incredibly helpful for communications departments to have the eyes and ears of every employee working with them.

• Finally, a note about something I’ve been saying for some time now and it’s good to hear others say it, too. Mike noted that despite all the technology and all the changes, “the basics still apply.” That’s a great point and I wish more people lusting after social media would remember it. I don’t care what kind of slick new delivery system we have for sharing news – the bottom line is that public relations, media relations, government relations, employee relations, etc. all rely on one main ingredient: relationships. Having great relationships that you can tap into and that others can tap into your expertise through are invaluable when it comes to communicating effectively and efficiently.

If you want to follow along with what I and the thousands of other people at this conference are talking about, get on Twitter and follow the hashtag #prsa09.

Mid-Michigan Battle Decks ‘09

There’s a national contest called PowerPoint Karaoke (sometimes referred to as Battle Decks) and it’s coming to East Lansing on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 8:30 p.m. The event will be held at 147 (Auditorium) Communication Arts & Sciences Building on the campus of Michigan State University.

The idea behind Battle Decks is that you get up in front of a group to do a PowerPoint presentation that lasts about 5 minutes — with the kicker being that you have no idea what is in the deck you are presenting. Some of the slides may be serious quotes, another could be an Excel spreadsheet graph, some could be silly pictures.

Contestants will be judged by a panel with the winner earning a very cool prize provided by Imation. We also will be filming the presentations and uploading them to YouTube for the national competition, which includes thousands of dollars in prizes and cash for winners.

Come cheer on public relations, broadcast and social media types from mid-Michigan as they battle it out for bragging rights. This event is co-hosted by the Public Relations Student Society of America chapter at MSU.

For more info, you can contact me via email at ari.adler(at)yahoo.com or on Twitter.

To err is human, shouldn’t correcting be, too?

“To err is human.” I’m not sure where that saying came from; it’s just one of those that’s been around forever. People make mistakes and when they do, those mistakes need to be corrected. Unfortunately, there seems to be a sentiment out there that pointing out a mistake to bloggers is somehow taboo.

Whether it’s a simple typo in a word or a factual error, why aren’t we, as consumers of the blogs, pointing mistakes out more frequently? If I see an error on someone’s post, I will try to send them a quick, private note to tell them about it. I admit, if it’s simply a misspelled word and I catch it while reading it on my phone, I might not reach out to them if I don’t already have their email address. That’s because navigating blogs on my phone is more cumbersome and I may not have the time to track down contact info on their page. If it’s a factual error, however, I will take the time to get their info and if I see a typo while on the computer then I also will make contact. Having thought about this more now, I can see where even posting a quick comment on the page will help them see their error. I’d have no problem with them fixing the error and then deleting my comment.

I started wondering about this issue yesterday when there were two errors in my blog post about Planet Google that I wrote for Digital Pivot. The post was just a fun romp through all things Google so it’s not like I was writing a treatise on Middle Eastern peace talks. But, as is often the case, I was writing the post early in the morning, pre-coffee, and in a bit of a hurry before work.

In my quest to finish the post, I was quickly changing my lead to make it more concise and, in doing so, changed the way I was referencing the planet Earth. Instead of something about it being the third of nine planets, I ended up simply referring to it as “the third planet.” At least that’s what I thought. In reality, I ended up typing “the ninth planet.” I also misspelled “course” by typing “of coure,” a typo I fixed later in the day while reading a comment someone had posted and the missing s caught my eye. But the ninth planet reference remained until quite late in the day, when my wife sent me a note via Google chat asking, “Since when is Earth the ninth planet?”

I was horrified and immediately went to the post and corrected my error. I then checked and found out the post had more than 80 views — which means several dozen people had read the post and not told me that the Earth isn’t the ninth planet.

I posted a question on Twitter afterward, asking, “If you catch an error on someone’s blog post, do you try to reach them to point it out? If not, why not?”

Here are some responses:

“If I catch it, and it’s a heinous one I do. If it’s a minor typo, it would depend. I don’t want them to look silly, so I contact.” ~ @jlknott

“Depends on the kind of error (glaring factual error vs. minor grammatical error) and/or how well I know the blogger.” ~ @LindsayMAllen

“I would, they’re putting themselves out there and a mistake makes them look bad. Let them know so they know.” ~ @akg1124

Should it matter how well we know a blogger? Should it matter if it’s a major factual error or just a simple typo? I would hope bloggers would be receptive to people pointing out corrections for them so, as @jlknott said, they won’t “look silly.” But it’s also a matter of pride. I would hope bloggers want to have credibility. I know I do. I know that, as @akg1124 said, I don’t want to “look bad.” And I know that if you see an error in one of my blogs — no matter how small — I want you to tell me.

After all, to err is human, shouldn’t correcting be, too?

Get the opinionated commentators on their own network

I’ve always dreaded the day I would turn into the guy that said, “Back in my day…” But, alas, it’s finally happened. I can’t take it anymore. The sullying of the news industry is moving at a breakneck pace and something has to change.

So, as I was saying, back in my day when I was a newspaper reporter, it was vitally important that no one knew my personal opinion on anything. I never discussed religion or politics with anyone unless it was to get their comment for a story. I didn’t profess an opinion on much of anything and while most people probably didn’t realize I was consciously doing this, I bet that if you had asked them where I stood on an issue, they would have been hard-pressed to figure it out.

That was all a part of my attempt to remain as objective as possible when reporting on a story. But, more importantly, it was a way for me to eliminate any perceived conflicts with sources. I didn’t ever want someone thinking they wouldn’t get fair treatment in one of my stories because I was biased in some way against them or their issue.

It’s too bad the current cable television news channels don’t practice this division between fact and opinion. Ask people why they watch CNN, Fox or MSNBC, and it will probably be because they think the networks they don’t watch are too biased to the left or right.

It’s also no wonder that this happens though, when you consider that the line between news and commentary is blurred regularly on all of the networks. Too often, the morning “news” shows are full of opinionated comments from the hosts about the news they are covering. Throughout the evening, the “news” networks are filled with shows based on personalities known more for their vitriolic tirades than their commitment to sharing fact-based news with their viewers.

I’m not suggesting there isn’t a place for opinion-based commentary on TV. After all, newspaper columnists and radio talk show hosts have been informing and entertaining people for many years. But newspaper publishers, radio station owners and even local TV news outlets have traditionally done a better job with drawing a distinctive line between what is news and what is opinion. On the cable TV networks, however, this line is blurred.

That’s why it’s time to get the opinionated commentators on their own network. Call it CNN-Commentary or Fox Opinion — but get it off the news stations. If we don’t get the opinion out of the news broadcasts on TV, we are going to continue to see the erosion of the journalism industry as a whole.

Get the opinions out of the news and you’ll soon see credibility working its way back in. It’s not too late — is it?

(Image courtesy of Knight Science Journalism Tracker)

Can you be too proactive when defending yourself?

I’ve always prescribed to the notion that if you screw up, just confess and repent because that’s how you get people to trust you again, or at least not distrust you as much. Let’s face it, our society suffers from attention deficit disorder and a short memory — a combination that makes it pretty easy to go from bad guy to forgotten guy in relatively short order.

But now I’m questioning that philosophy given two recent incidents  of organizations trying to play defense with an aggressive offense and failing. Can you be too proactive when defending yourself?

Case # 1 involves Pepsi and its iPhone app, Amp Up Before You Score, sponsored by its Amp energy drink. The concept is that guys could look through a directory of female stereotypes to learn the best pickup lines and then use the app to share their conquests with others.

AdAge did a nice overview of the issue here. The problem related to my question is, did PepsiCo go overboard in backpedaling on this? Not only did they claim it was a mistake and apologize, they had other brands jump into the apology fray, including Pepsi and Mt. Dew. They even created their own hashtag for Twitter, #pepsifail. The thing is that now people who didn’t even know about the app and the controversy are talking about it and, in some cases, joining the anti-Pepsi side of the debate. The target market for Amp and the Amp app are the same, but that’s not the target audience of Pepsi or Mt. Dew or even the folks who follow Pepsi on Twitter.

Another case of hanging your laundry up in the yard before washing it occurred recently at a school district in mid-Michigan. With an amazing dose of stupidity, a group of teachers decided to party together to celebrate the end of the school year. During this party, alcohol and marijuana were consumed, apparently in great enough quantities that one of the teachers passed out. While she was unconscious, the other teachers scrawled on her body with markers to “drunk shame” her, a rite of passage for many college students who learn the hard way that your drinking buddies aren’t necessarily your friends.

Well, two years later, the “victim” has decided the police and the school district haven’t done enough for her and she went public with her complaints via the Michigan Messenger, an online news outlet. Seeing an opportunity to go on the offensive and, I guess, nip the story in the bud, the school superintendent sent a memo to all the parents in the district. The memo gave only vague references to the incident and then spoke of how the district’s hands were tied in terms of discipline but how it was considered a deplorable situation.

At this point, everyone who hadn’t heard of the incident was now frantically searching news outlets on line to figure what the heck he was talking about. And, sure enough, because the district issued a formal statement on the incident, the local mainstream media had to report on it as well. The Lansing State Journal had an overview story and a public-reaction story yesterday. There is another story today about how one of the teachers has now resigned as the girls’ varsity basketball coach.  That’s three stories in the main local paper in two days about an incident that is more than two years old — an incident that many parents probably hadn’t heard of until now.

A major corporation and a local school district went on the offensive trying to counteract negative publicity and their tactics had the exact opposite effect.

So is the philosophy of confess and repent flawed? I’d still like to believe it has its appropriate uses. If you know the story is going mainstream, then you should consider getting out in front of it. But trying to get out in front of a story that isn’t a story until you make it one is a mistake.

What do you think?

(Photo courtesy of AdAge)

FTC-ruling story at Ragan.com

This is a piece I wrote for Ragan Communications:

Published: 10/12/2009 Bloggers, relax—FTC rules aren’t revolutionary By Ari B. Adler They’re simple disclosures and easy protocols you should have been following in the first place “The FTC is coming! The FTC is coming!” Like some kind of modern-day Paul Revere, bloggers have been preparing their lanterns. They are ready to hang one if by e-mail and two if by snail-mail if they are hit with the highly touted $11,000 fine for failing to disclose compensation for a post about a product. Enough already—this is nothing worthy of a revolution. The Federal Trade Commission ruling doesn’t appear to be all about levying massive fines, trying to make mommy bloggers choose between some cool free products for the home or their kids’ college education. The basics behind the new guidelines are as follows: Endorsers and advertisers can now be held liable for false claims; Endorsers and advertisers must disclose material connections with their sponsor; Bloggers are now considered endorsers if they receive compensation, including free products; Firms that engage bloggers with any form of payment in order to receive endorsement of a product must disclose that relationship. Celebrity endorsers must now disclose advertising relationships; The “results not typical” or “results may vary” caveat is no longer a defense for advertisers when their product doesn’t work the way they said it would; and Sponsorship for research cited in advertisements or endorsements must be disclosed. As a former journalist and one who still believes in the journalistic code of ethics, I’ve been frustrated for some time now how bloggers are posting their opinions with a smattering of facts and expecting the world to take it as gospel. When I write blog posts, I think it’s clear they are my opinion. They are based on facts but also are influenced by my personal opinion, and I don’t hold back when commenting on the facts I’ve uncovered. It’s been liberating, actually, to be able to write about things and offer some analysis and a few snarky comments. It’s something I was unable to do as a journalist, because back then it really was just about the facts. I learned the hard way that no matter how well intentioned you are as a writer, if you are given special treatment, provided a product or compensated in any way, it will influence how your story is written. When I was a young editor at a weekly newspaper, a trip to Mackinac Island, Mich., to check out a refurbished hotel came across my desk. I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a trip north as I hadn’t been there in a while, and I was determined to give a fair and accurate review of the facility. I took the free trip, spent a couple of days gathering notes and came home to write what I thought was a great travel piece. It was factual. It was fair. It was positive about some things and critical of others. I was very pleased with myself for having pulled off a junket and still managing to write an ethically acceptable news story. Then the story was printed, and I got a visit from our publisher. His first words were, “I hope we got something for that Mackinac Island story.” I explained that we weren’t a pay-to-play publication so, of course, there was no advertising connected to it, but that I did get a couple of days on the island for my efforts. “Ah, OK, he said—well as long as someone got compensated in some way for that promotional piece.” See, it’s not that the FTC or the buying public don’t want journalists or bloggers to get free stuff. It’s not that people don’t trust your ethics. It’s that they understand that no matter how objective you think you can be, there is no doubt you are going to be influenced by compensation in any form when you sit down to write about your experience. In the textbook “Mixed Media,” by Thomas Bivins, it’s noted: “The subjective view of reality is relative to the observer. …We must remember that, as human beings, we still tend to view the objective world through a subjective lens. The trick to being objective is to recognize this inclination and understand that there will be different accounts of reality that must then be judged as either adequate or inadequate based on facts and reason, not on personal perspective.” How are we, as readers, expected to be able to judge adequately what your perception of reality is if we don’t know all the facts about how you may have been influenced in your writing? If you receive a free product in order to review it—take advantage of the opportunity. But be forthright enough to admit that it may influence your opinion. After all, your hard-earned money isn’t on the line if the product works like a charm or not quite like you expected. If your readers are going to spend their money based on your review, you owe it to them to be as transparent as possible on how you arrived at your opinion. In the end, the FTC rules boil down to being upfront about what you are doing, why you are doing it and whom you are doing it for—whether you’re a journalist, an advertiser, a public relations professional or a blogger. In a memo to members of the Public Relations Society of America, PRSA Chairman & CEO Michael Cherenson wrote: “From an ethics perspective, the new guidelines parallel key transparency principles in the PRSA Code of Ethics, as well as Professional Standards Advisory PS-9 condemning ‘pay for play’ practices. However, for practitioners, the guidelines go beyond ethics to recommended practice to avoid legal liability. While the ethics are clear, the triggers and nature of adequate disclosure are not fixed. As I recommended in a recent PRSAY post, thorough understanding and self-regulation can help public relations professionals avoid legal repercussions.” In short: Do the right thing and do it where everyone can see it, and you’ll avoid any trouble. Now there’s a revolutionary concept.

Are YOU a brand?

Are you a brand? Yes you are, whether you like it or not.

As a professional adviser for the Michigan State University Chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America, I was approached recently to help secure a speaker for a professional development session on personal branding. I put the word out on Twitter to mid-Michigan folks, asking them who came to mind when thinking about who has built and maintains a solid personal brand.

A number of people replied with the same answers, so that was a good sign that those folks nominated as having a “solid personal brand” truly do. I was honored and humbled to be among those listed. I think it’s rewarding to know that the work I’ve done to put myself out there in a way that is open and sincere in all facets of my online and real-life encounters is paying off.

I also was somewhat surprised, however, when one person asked why everyone is so worried about their personal brand and if this was a symptom of the “me, me, me” philosophy complained about so often lately.

It got me thinking about different perspectives on this issue. I believe everything you do in your personal and professional life is building or dismantling your personal brand. It doesn’t matter who you work for — you as an individual are responsible for your brand. It starts as a young college student building that first resume and continues throughout your career as you add on job experience, professional  references and personal online identities.

Obviously, my opinion isn’t the only one — so let’s hear yours. Are you a brand? If so, what are you doing to build and maintain it? If not, why not — I want to hear the other side of this argument as well.

For reference, I’m pleased to share the other nominees for those in mid-Michigan cited by at least a few people as having a solid personal brand:

• Bob Fish — founder of Biggby Coffee, whom you can follow at @biggbybob on Twitter

• Betsy Weber — chief evangelist for TechSmith – @betsyweber

• Julielyn Gibbons — founder of i3 Strategies – @i3strategies

• Bil Moore — solutions consultant for Strategic Products & Services – @bilmoore

(Photo courtesy of Lucinda Surber)