Saturday, November 25, 2006

Five Best Books on Public Relations

OpinionJournal published Michael Kempner's list of five best PR books:

1. "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays (Liveright, 1928).

2. "American Hero" by Larry Beinhart (Pantheon, 1993).

3. "The Eloquent President" by Ronald C. White Jr. (Random House, 2005).

4. "Thank You for Smoking" by Christopher Buckley (Random House, 1994).

5. "All's Fair" by Mary Matalin and James Carville (Random House, 1994).

Other than "Propaganda," authored by the father of the public relations industry, the rest of the list are surprises. These are not your typical PR text books, and I'd never even heard of "The Eloquent President," a book about the eloquence of Abraham Lincoln. I'm a big Lincoln fan, so I don't know how I missed it, but I'm off to BN.com to pick it up.

Regarding "All's Fair," this is a terrific read. I'm proud to own a signed copy--signed by BOTH Matalin and Carville. They were the keynote speakers at the IABC conference in Washington DC in '95. If you haven't read it yet, go get it. It's fun for political junkies (like me) and PR pros (also like me). Enjoy!

Thursday, November 16, 2006

PDA Users Suffer from Email Overload

I love my Palm Treo, but do I think it makes me more productive? No. Isn't it SUPPOSED to make me more productive? Yes!

Well, a study put on by my beloved International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) found that 85% of the 1,700 business communication professionals interviewed had productivity issues thanks to email.

Sixty-two percent of respondents to the IABC survey said they receivetoo much e-mail, compared to 75 percent of PDA users. In addition, almosthalf of the respondents (44 percent) agreed that they send too much e-mail. In comparison, 56 percent of PDA users are guilty of sending too much e-mail.

I'm not sure that my Treo's email capability is what hurts my productivity...it's just always being available (as with any cell phone), and having it loaded with games that are too fun to pass up when I have some time to kill (ok, time that I COULD spend doing something more productive).

Oh well...productivity is highly overrated.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

What Abe Lincoln can teach us about email

Telecom expert Tom Wheeler says that Abraham Lincoln, the first U.S. president with access to the telegraph, developed a personal code of electronic communications that modern-day netizens would do well to adopt in their email habits.

Wheeler describes Lincoln's "T-mail" etiquette and the lessons we can learn from it, like:
Less is More - Whereas many saw the blank telegraph form as an invitation to an essay, Lincoln's telegrams were short and to the point. "Your long despatch of yesterday just received," Lincoln chided General George McClellan about a 10-page telegram sent in May 1863. Then the president required only three additional sentences to reply to the general's endless essay.

Responding to a long-winded message with only a few words is indeed a great way to train others how to use email.

Read about it here:

What Abraham Lincoln Taught Me about Email