Your PR Architect

By LuckyLouie at English Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons In a prior blog post , I decried the jargon-packed news release that introduced "tronc," the befuddled new name for Tribune Publishing. I wasn't the only one who thought: "What are these people trying to say?" NPR ran a story about it this morning. You can hear it here.  The tronc CEO makes a point, I guess. But it's still not a brand strategy I'd embrace if I needed to promote my editorial content.

To:  Michael Ferro, Chairman       Tribune Publishing, a.k.a., tronc cc: Blog Readers Subject: Invitation: How to Communicate Dear Mike: I invite you and your communications team to drop by my office at the university.  My schedule's Chicago Tribune Building, By Stuart Seeger [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons flexible 'til late August. But act fast. Because as your company transforms to some digital communications-moneymaking internet punchline, your recent news release tells me Tribune Publishing has lost its grasp of how to communicate in English. Your June 2 news release,  Tribune Publishing Announces Corporate Rebranding, Changes Name to Tronc,  sets a new low in incomprehensible jargon. Experienced PR people write releases that readers will understand. The writer who pumped out this horrid excuse for a press release has no grasp of this.  It's perfectly fine to r...

My earliest PR successes came from creating newsletters for business-to-business clients, alumni, and employees. These publications -- semi-weekly, monthly, and quarterly -- each helped grow relationships between my clients and their constituents (customers). And none of them exist today. Casualties of the digital age? In some ways. In the 1980s, desktop publishing gave almost everyone the power of the press. And some resulting newsletters were ghastly, much like some of today's blogs. But, as the internet grew, printing and mailing costs increased, and managers and marketers switched to online content: e-newsletters, or some other digital solutions. Those managers overlooked an important factor: their audiences . People who view a newsletter as an emblem of a relationship. They're accustomed to physical connections, and willingly invest their resources and time to support those relationships. After spending their workday staring at an optically challenging computer scree...