Your PR Architect

I love employee recognition. I despise 90 percent of the photos taken to recognize great employees. HR leaders love to talk about employee engagement. If they wish to do more than talk, they'll advocate for a communications person to strengthen internal communications.  One strategy: beef up employee recognition programs. Some organizations do employee recognition well. Hospitals and health care providers do a good job of honoring their employees. Colleges and corporations, less so.  Often, someone will line up a group of employees for a  recognition  photo that's destined for a local newspaper, company newsletter, or website. The photo itself? It's often rushed, unposed, and you wonder if the organization is recognizing people, or lining them up for a firing squad. Look at these actual employee recognition photos, and consider the following suggestions: 1. The Line-Up: a non-motion perp walk featuring a casual, backlit gaggle of employees...

Is it worth shouting about an award if you aren't among the Top Ten winners? Today, Apple is the world's No. 1 Brand, according to Interbrand, a brand consulting agency (surprise!) that annually assigns an economic value to the best-known global brands. This year, Apple bounced long-time top dog Coca-Cola off the Global Brands summit, landing it just below Google at No. 2. (Read the whole list here. ) Business awards are our industry's cottage industry. A publication or organization looking to gain credibility creates some form of award competition, invites nominees, recognizes the winning companies at a banquet or news conference -- and then tries to leverage the relationship into an exchange of cash. Buying an ad or a membership. Licensing the award logo for use on packaging or in ads. And so on. Everyone likes recognition. Even if it's not cheap. Once J.D. Power recognizes your company as tops in customer satisfaction, you need to pay a minimum five-figu...