Girls, Girls, Girls. Examining the “chick factor” in PR

Watch for details in this space…

When I finish grading projects and proctoring exams in a few days, I plan to publish at least two posts about the gender imbalance in public relations – along with some ideas on how to fix it. I’ll tell you what the women in my Case Studies class learned about the problem, and I’ll share some of their strategies for attracting men to the PR biz.

Regular readers will recall my raising the gender issue back in January in a post that drew 47 comments and went on for two weeks.

If you haven’t noticed the gender shift while attending PRSA or IABC meetings, come to my classroom sometime. At Kent State, nearly 90% of PR majors are women. This year, for the first time in history, EVERY student in our gateway PR Case Studies class was female.

But PR’s gender diversity problem isn’t unique to Kent State. It’s a worldwide phenomenon that lots of folks talk about but few act upon. Maybe you don’t agree that it’s a problem at all. I think it is.

What will it take to attract men to the PR biz? Watch this space next week.

Until then, I’ll be knee deep in final projects and exams. It’s tough sledding I tell ya.

Replacing Kent State’s Jewell? It’ll take a gem!

When the boss asked me to chair a search committee to replace my soon-to-be-semi-retired colleague Rob Jewell, I just chuckled.

Let’s see. Where will I find a PR professional with 35 years of experience who has counseled Fortune 500 executives from a cushy, but often very hot seat on mahogany row? And where will I find a master strategist who also has proven himself as a teacher in sophomore-level courses and one with the patience to mentor kids who sometimes struggle with misplaced modifiers?

And if we do find this person, how do I convince him or her to work for less than $50K a year?

Rob Jewell, teacher and mentor extraordinaire, will exit the not-so-ivy-covered walls of Kent State at the end of this week. He’s spent 5 years on the PR faculty here and earned teaching evaluations that, well — that I haven’t seen in a decade. But more importantly, Rob took the concept of a student PR firm and made it happen — so much so that CASE recognized Rob and Flash Communications with one if its highest awards.

In 2005-06, Kent State honored Rob with its Outstanding Teaching Award — our highest honor for classroom performance. Inside or outside the classroom, this guy has some serious creds.

Many academic PR programs have student firms — but not like Flash. Most student firms operate from PRSSA chapters and are staffed by volunteers. Most student firms work with small companies and nonprofits.

Flash Communications, operates as an integral part of Kent State’s University Communications & Marketing. Paid staffers (about 10 per semester) work on public relations projects that are essential to the goals and objectives of the institution. They write articles, develop brochure and Web copy, plan events and pitch the media. And they’re effective thanks to the mentoring of Rob Jewell, who has spent half his time overseeing the Flash operation.

Rob isn’t a control freak, nor is is a heavy-handed editor. He lets the students do their work, helping them find the right path but never leading them down one. He allows them to make mistakes, and they learn in the process. He recruits from the full roster of PR majors, not just the stars — and quite a few average performers later became stars, in part as a result of Rob’s policy.

Before joining Kent State, Rob spent a few years as a PR consultant after spending nearly 30 years with the BFGoodrich Company — once one of Akron’s “Big Four” tiremakers. He rose form entry-level grunt to VP of Corporate Communications. But when BFG was sold in the late 90s, Rob decided forgo a transfer south and become a young retiree.

A few years later he retired from his consulting business to take this full-time job at Kent State. Now he’s retiring from Kent State to join the Washington, D.C. foundation, Corporate Voices for Working Families, where he’ll be working from his home and commute to D.C. as needed.

Do you get the idea he doesn’t understand the concept of retirement?

For an old dog (he’s 5 years my senior), Rob learned a lot of new tricks while at Kent State. Walk in his office today and you’re likely to find him Twittering on his Blackberry or posting to his blog, PR On the Run. Rob writes on a range of PR topics, most of which occur to him during his daily 5 a.m., 5-mile runs.

Nope. This guy’s not getting old at all, though I won’t speak for his hamstrings.

There’s no easy way to sum up this post. We’re gonna miss Rob Jewell a lot. While he leaves the proverbial “big shoes” to fill, he also leaves a solid foundation for his successor to build upon. He is leaving Kent State a better place than it was when he arrived. Not everyone can say that.

Join the PRKent faithful at Ray’s Place this Friday, May 9, at 5:30. We’ll all raise a glass to Rob as he retires one more time.

Finding wisdom in your blog vacation? Me neither!

The blog vacation has a week to go, and I have a stack of projects to grade — like right now. But the vacation also has allowed me a bit more time to read the news and ponder the nonsense around me.

Today, I found two items you absolutely must see if truth and intelligence in government mean a thing to you (oxymoron intended).

In yesterday’s New York Times, Tom Friedman comments on the proposal by two of our three candidates to suspend the federal gasoline tax for the summer driving season. Under the headline, “Dumb as We Wanna Be,” Friedman calls out McCain and Clinton for their shameless pandering to Americans suffering from gasoline sticker shock. Yesterday I experienced my first $50 fill-up with the old Subaru. I’m not happy about it, but I’m not stupid as a result.

When you reach a milestone, reward yourself

Mark your calendar. April 18, 2008. My 200th post on ToughSledding, and my last for a few weeks — a little blog vacation that can’t wait a day longer.

Back on Feb. 4 I said the PR blogsphere had “lost its wind.” Turns out I have, too. So I’m signing off until May 10. A that point I’ll reassess things to see if the vacation should continue. It is spring, after all, and the bass are rising.

I’ll be back. I just need to step back and see if this still makes sense to me.

My cold, dead hands are smarting after this one!

Never thought I’d see the day when the good old boys at Wal-Mart would so deliberately piss off the NRA (statement here). But here you have it, straight from the AP wire, typos and all (full story):

WASHINGTON (AP) ― New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is applauding Wal-Mart for toughening it’s (sic) regulations for selling guns. Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest seller of firearms.

The store says it will make videos of purchases and create an internal log so guns they sell can be traced if later used in crimes.

Mayor Bloomberg has been leading a national campaign called “Mayors Against Illegal Guns.”

Wal-Mart didn’t say how low (sic) it would take to implement the changes in its eleven hundred stores.

The National Rifle Association denounced the company’s move.

When trust is absent, Part II: Why management needs PR people at the table — especially here!

Last week I told you how the absence of trust has me leery of the folks who run my university. So I’ve decided to write about this case a bit more, and to focus on the PR lessons it presents.

To recap, I was suspicious last week of an offer from the KSU administration to extend the faculty contract for one year. In exchange for the postponement, we get a 3% raise, a freeze in healthcare costs and the long-waited “domestic partner benefits” provision. Despite early skepticism, I went to my AAUP Council meeting Friday ready to endorse the offer. While I don’t trust the source, the offer seems reasonable to me.

My colleagues on the union council weren’t so willing. In fact, most have become so distrustful of our boss and his lieutenants that the contract extension never got much of a hearing. We did vote to send the proposal to a membership vote, but only with a strong recommendation that members reject it.

I listened as the debate played out, and came to understand the widespread enmity for the current administration. It’s a textbook case of management’s failure to tend to the relationships that matter most in an organization — the relationships with employees. We teach that in PR 101.

Ladies Night In Buffalo — Yet another case of ignoring the vision of public relations

I don’t recall if “Ladies Night In Buffalo” was a big hit for David Lee Roth, as I never cared much for the whole Van Halen genre. But it sure was popular song on the east end of Lake Erie in 1986. That I do remember.

Ladies’ night promotions helped to pack the night clubs on Wednesdays across the Niagara Frontier. Women drank free and, naturally, men spent lavishly for the privilege of meeting drunk women.

It wasn’t until the personal injury lawyers came along that these “get loaded cheap” promotions became a PR problem for the clubs that sponsored them. When drunk patrons drove off to kill or maim innocent victims, juries began to hold night club owners accountable along with the drivers. Faced with huge losses and skyrocketing insurance costs, bar owners turned to their PR counselors for advice.

Back in the 80s I did some work for hotel & restaurant owners in Buffalo, and I recall coming up with the perfect answer to their problem. I suggested installing coin-operated breath analyzers in every bar. This way, patrons could check their own BAC before leaving. Those blowing in the “red zone” could opt for other ways home — even asking the bartender to call a cab, or at least to hide the customers’ keys.

The 4 club managers at this meeting roared in unison. When the laughter subsided one said: “That’s been tried. It turns into a contest of who can score the highest BAC without passing out.”

Ah, the macho 80s. My head hurts just thinking about it.

It was my turn to laugh this week, when this story appeared in Wednesday’s Akron Beacon Journal. Seems that a local gin mill called Beer 30 has installed an Alcohol Alert breath analyzer. For a buck a blow, you can get a fairly precise reading of your breath alcohol content. The manufacturer, Ke-Ro Corp., claims the machine is accurate to within .02 percent.

One Beer 30 patron said: “I think it’s a great idea. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen one in a bar.”

So there you have it — another case where the wisdom of PR counsel was ignored lo those many years ago. I had the answer, I tell you, and the client just laughed. Ask anyone who was in the meeting.

For me, it’s another one of those Butch Cassidy moments. “I have vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.”

When trust is absent, suspicion rules

I’m a union guy — a card-carrying member of the AAUP. But I’ve never been comfortable with it. Though I come from union roots in the Pennsylvania coal fields, I spent my first career as an advocate for management. So color me conflicted.

I’ve never been on strike, or even close. But it’s a contract year at Kent State, and everyone expects some hard-nosed negotiating, since times are tough and state funding lean. But just as the union was selecting its bargaining team, management offered an olive branch that took us all by surprise.

Last week, the administration asked the AAUP to extend the existing contract for one more year. The offer isn’t a bad one on the surface: a 3% across-the-board raise and no increase in healthcare costs. That in itself is worth considering, but then the bossman sweetened it by adding “domestic partner benefits,” something the union has supported for 20 years or more and something the administration has refused to discuss year after year after year.

Why does this meaningful gesture from management smell so funny to me? The answer is simple.

When two parties lose trust in one another, even reasonable proposals are met with suspicion.

Kent State “You Too” Slides

This one comes far later than intended, but I have a half dozen great excuses if you’d like to hear them.

Here’s a link you to my SlideShare page where I have parked the PowerPoints used by our speakers at the March 7, 2008, “You Too Social Media Boot Camp and Leadership Summit” at Kent State.

And here is the website on Podcasting Basics created by Jeff Drake.

If you’d prefer direct downloads of the slides:

Plenary Session (Sledzik/Baskovic/Ewing):plenarysessionu2

SEO Session (Moore/Baskovic): seosem-u2

Cool Tools Lunch Presentation (Sage Lewis): cooltoolsu2

Legal Issues (Steve Shannon): burrelleslucecopyright

Kent State ‘flash mob’ creates news, buzz — and maybe saves a life or two

This week the old professor basks in the reflected glory of Kent State’s “Donate Life Ohio” team. These 7 PR students, all juniors, have spent the last 10 weeks executing a campaign to increase the number of organ donors in Northeast Ohio.

Their campaign is working.

So far, the Kent team has signed some 7,500 new donors. They used traditional face-to-face tools like information booths and presentations, but they also plugged into Web 2.0 with a range of Facebook tactics and this follow-up video on YouTube.

Thirteen Ohio schools have fielded teams in the Donate Life College Program. But we’re gonna win — I just know it.