Your PR Architect

I seldom venture into politics or commentary about candidates for political office. This is a brief exception. News editors, I'm talking to you. Do you realize that when Donald Trump says something incendiary about some non-U.S. nationality, he's baiting you? When you keep re-playing his offensive comments about Mexican citizens, you give him more exposure than, say, ANY CANDIDATE WHO'S ACTUALLY GOVERNED? Substitute image to be used in place of any photo of Donald Trump. P.T. Barnum wasn't available. When you report on corporations backing out of deals with Trump, that's only slightly newsworthy. Companies end business dealings all the time. When Kodak collapsed into bankruptcy, major deals with Target, Wal-mart, Disney, and the PGA Tour went away. The backlash over Trump's remarks made his torn-up contracts mildly more interesting, but not deserving of the air time and web content you're handing over to him. Donald Trump is a very expens...

I didn't know you could buy surplus animatronic figures from Disney parks. Let alone install one from the Hall of Presidents as a company CEO. Animatronic at Disney Hall of Progress By SteamFan (own work (Nikon D80)) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) via Wikimedia Commons You'll read countless New Year's resolutions in the coming week. Some will be preposterous or hard to keep. But if you're a CEO or executive director of an organization, and you don't wish to be mistaken for an animatronic historical figure, there's an easy resolution to keep -- one that will help your internal communications far more than any newsletter or video message. It's simple: Be authentic. Be human.  Not every CEO is a "people person." The leader I'm describing -- call him Gerry -- was a good strategist and a charismatic sales leader. But he was never at ease talking...

Today, I'm sharing a link to a 2013 post on the Disney Parks blog, written by my friend and colleague Bernadette Davis. Bernadette is a communications manager for the Disney Parks in Florida, and often helps out in special events that take place on the property. Bernadette's post isn't a deep exploration of some industry topic, nor is it an essay on Florida tourism.  It's not an ad masquerading as a blog, either. It does share some interesting news about an event hosted by Disney that focuses on giving young people a closer look at career opportunities in sports. What makes this blog post successful? You get a small glimpse of Bernadette -- her interests, her family, and what she does -- in a brief sentence. Personalization is important in a blog post. Her blog gives exposure to a newsworthy activity that might not gain visibility if shared as a conventional news release. It shows that Disney's corporate responsibility extends well beyond Soarin' and cha...

Sailor. Skipper. Cruiser. Crew. A man for all seasides. Disney Wonder, at port in Nassau, Bahamas A few personal nicknames, all reflecting my interest in nautical pursuits. None of these, however, makes me an expert on cruise lines. Experience on watercraft provides only modest preparation for events that can threaten even the most casual of seagoing experiences: I've taken two commercial cruises on those giant floating hotels masquerading as "ocean liners." The Disney Cruise Lines ' crew on the Disney Wonder did a better job than Norwegian Cruise Lines' Norwegian Dawn. Both were mostly trouble-free but I helped prevent a potential shipboard fire on one trip. I sailed the Abacos with a Boy Scout troop aboard a 20-year-old Beneteau whose skipper struck a submerged rock on our first night at sea. We limped through the rest of the week-long cruise. I've skippered a small sailboat and a powerboat, wrecking the powerboat engine's prop on a semi-subme...