InsidEPR

Are you ready for some Football? Engage PR is!

By The Commish (aka Neila Matheny)

Luckily, it is that time of the year again. The NFL avoided extending the summertime lockout into the  regular season and all of us fantasy football junkies can get our fix of speculating, drafting and smack talking at the right time of the year. For the third consecutive year, the Engage PR crew is taking part in the fantasy football tradition, holding the annual draft this month.

The Hoya Paranoias are returning as the regular-season champions from 2010, who fell just short in the  playoffs last season. Many of the other regulars are back for 2011, such as Shake N Bake and Bitzy’s Bashers, who are always tough foes and postseason veterans. New this season are three recently formed teams named Room for Error, the Mighty Ducks and the Flying Squirrels. With some of the league’s star players on these teams, including Michael Vick, Tom Brady and Larry Fitzgerald, these newbies are primed to make an impact.

Hopefully, I can avoid the curse of the Commissioner this season and avoid any early injuries to my top few picks. However, after winning the first overall pick, it feels like other shoe will eventually fall.

Will a newcomer emerge as the league leader or will an old favorite rise to the top?

Will Probation Nation II overcome the preseason loss of Ryan Williams?

Will the Ragging Royas and A-Bashes remember to change their lineup during the bye weeks?

Stay tuned to the InsidEPR blog for more updates from the Engage PR 2011 Fantasy Football season and the answers to all of these questions.

Dinner and a Show: EPR "Watches" the A's Beat the Rays

By Roya Pakfetrat

This week after a long hard day in the office, we decided to relax and trot on over to the local Oakland Coliseum to enjoy a night full of beer, food, entertainment and a little bit of baseball. The night’s highlights include:

• A full “band” of fans that cheered on the A’s, playing some good music on their drums and other musical instruments
• The honor of getting a hold of some homemade “Matsuiland” stickers from the same “band o’ fans”
• The Godzilla head man and the kid with the vuvuzela cheering for Matsui the ENTIRE game
• A hot dog or ten, a few plates of nachos, a beer in every hand and of course - a night full of laughs

Sure the A’s won but we won’t remember that for long. Instead we have splendid memories and even closer relationships. To stimulate your visual needs, check out some of our pictures. Until next time gang...

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Top 7 Benefits of Working at a Small Agency

By Fran Lowe

In the same way that PR pros look across the fence every now and then and decide that life really would be easier, simpler, less stressful (you fill in the blank) if they moved from agency to corporate; or more exciting, more challenging, etc. if they moved agency-side (again, you fill in the blank), there is a similar debate – no matter where you are in your career - about the pros and cons of working at a small versus a large pr agency.

Having recently joined a small agency after working in small, medium and large agencies, I thought I’d share what I think are the Top 7 pluses of small agency life.

1. Great exposure to how an agency actually operates. If you’re working your way up the totem pole, you get to see beyond client-side, right from the beginning.

2. Greater opportunity to take on added responsibilities sooner and gain new skills faster. An Assistant Account Executive might be doing what a SAE in a larger agency is doing, and teams tend to be smaller with fewer layers between Account Coordinators or Account Executives and Account Directors or VPs

3. A greater chance to be noticed. More direct interaction, more opportunity for learning and mentoring and a greater opportunity to shine and be seen by your managers. While you get the opportunity to work as a team, if you have an individual success, it gets noticed and recognized.

4. Hands-on at all levels. Expectations and opportunities to learn new skills. No dedicated social media or marketing group for example, so you get to spread your wings.

5. Hone your presentation skills early. Take part in new business outreach. You aren’t just doing research to prepare for a pitch, but being part of the pitch - not as a wall-flower, but with an actual speaking part!

6. Face time with clients, early in your career. Because teams are small, every member gets to demonstrate value to the client at every interaction. No one has to stay back in the office.

7. Flexible culture that makes the elusive goal of a life-work balance more of a reality. Engage PR’s Thrive and Shine program (for clients and employees), lets employees work from home at least one day a week as they progress up the agency ladder, finish work at 2 pm on Fridays, bring their dog to work on Fridays (admittedly we haven’t yet worked out what to do with those of us who prefer cats or birds or fish …) and accommodates life-events (e.g.: parenthood, moving state, …) with creative part-time and remote working arrangements.

Engage PR Fantasy Football Season Wrap-Up

By The Commish (aka Neila Matheny)

With the NFL season heading into the second week of the playoffs, the Engage PR fantasy football season has come to a close.

Congratulations to CotonHeadedNinyMugin (10-3) with a 129.57 – 72.95 victory over Bitzy’s Bashers II (7-6), led by midseason pick-ups Michael Vick, Ryan Torain and LeGarrette Blount. 

Bitzy’s Bashers II came on strong with a playoff charge to finish second, despite having the sixth highest point total in the league and losing three starting quarterbacks with Tony Romo and Matt Cassel suffering in-season injuries and Jon Kitna going down in the championship game.

A few interesting observations from the Engage PR season…

• Hoya Paranoia defeated Probation Nation in the Third-Place Game, while Shake’n’Bake beat Meanie Mathenys in the Fifth-Place Game.
• It was a crazy Week 8 that saw the highest one-week point total in 148.60, as well as the two lowest 52.50 and 44.80.
• Two of the top 15 point scorers were without a team at the end of the season, as Carson Palmer and Josh Freeman were free agents.
• Bitzy’s Bashers posted the highest point total in the playoffs with a 139.48 showing in the quarterfinals
• No team had more than one of the top point scorers at their position. The top scorers at each position were spread across six different teams, but none were part of the league champion team.  Those players are listed in the All-Star Team below.


Engage PR All-Star Team
QB – Peyton Manning, Indianapolis
RB – Arian Foster, Houston
WR – Dwayne Bowe, Kansas City
TE – Jason Witten, Dallas
K – Sebastian Janikowski, Oakland
DEF – Pittsburgh

Elfster – what?

By Roya Pakfetrat

With the Holidays just around the corner, EPR was in full swing this week with a Holiday Potluck and Secret Santa Gift Exchange. In a yearly tradition the entire team signed up to bring in a dish of their choice, for a larger than life feast and a high tech style Secret Santa gift exchange.

The menu was an endless assortment of homemade hot and cold platters. The selection included lumpia, corn pudding, green bean casserole, shepherd’s pie, chicken chili, coleslaw and more. To top the meal off, we indulged in a homemade creamy pumpkin cheesecake. This meal could only mean one thing for everyone, an afternoon of fighting a post potluck “food coma". But I must say, in my book, every bite was well worth it!

Following our meal we began the Secret Santa gift exchange. The process really began about a month back when Engage PR set up on online Secret Santa account through a website called Elfster (which I had previously never heard of but now highly recommend). Elfster makes the Secret Santa process more organized and fun by providing an automatic selection process, a place for users to ask anonymous questions of their gift recipients and a news feed that allows users to post anything to create a public “wishlist.”

Elfster was a great choice because once all the pretty bags and gift wrap were torn way some really great gifts quickly filled the office. This year’s favorites included personalized wine bottles, best selling books, coffee sets, guitar accessories and even a reindeer antler headband. Not to mention, I was quite impressed with the Engage staff for keeping their fellow team members in the dark for so long on who they would be secretly shopping for this holiday season.

I think it is safe to say, EPR had a great holiday.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

 

Help Us Help You

By Molly Reynolds

The group was stuck in a community service rut – a good kind of rut, but a rut nonetheless. The team at  Engage PR had been volunteering with the same two organizations over and over because they were local and accepted a group of our size. I was determined to expand our horizons, make a positive mark on the community -in short, change lives!

It was not so easy.

To start, an environmental group that EPR had worked previously has added a stipulation to its volunteering requirements. Folks must show up in groups of at least 15 and pay a “suggested fee” of nearly a $1000 to work for them for half a day. That’s when I knew it would be tricky. Pay to volunteer?

The second organization, which matches individuals and groups with volunteer opportunities, held more promise. No up-front cost here. At least, until I spoke with the representative, who indicated a fee of $1,500 for us, since we were a corporate group.

A third organization, a very well-known International organization, requested 25 volunteers and $2,500.

Please, help us help you. At the risk of sounding stingy or lazy, I couldn’t help thinking that many  people  who may be inclined to volunteer would be stopped by these roadblocks. Isn’t it in the interest of nonprofit organizations to eliminate any obstacles to potential volunteers? This doesn’t seem to be the case.

Then, through a lengthy Yelp! search, I found them. The members of a national organization to get overstocked medical supplies to needy hospitals and clinics finally accepted us. They wanted no money, just our time and hard work. In December, we will help them with their mission. If things go well, maybe we’ll even help them more than once.

Which Witch is Which?

By Molly Reynolds

EPR loves holidays almost as much as EPR loves food.

So, it stands to reason that EPR had a wonderful time this week, celebrating Halloween with a potluck and costume contest.

To close a month of BOO-ed cubicles and glittered pumpkins, a pink gangster, a pink leopard cat, an 80s girl, Frida Kahlo, a firefighter, Tickle-Me Elmo, a ninja, a corporate comedian, a hippie accountant, and, appropriately, a chef brought in a smorgasbord of delicious dishes. You can see in the slideshow just how many vegetables graced the table – it was likely the healthiest EPR potluck on record!

After lunch, the costume contest saw the scary witch take first place. The corporate comedian (aka the "Whistler") placed second. Third place went to Frida Kahlo, after a thrilling runoff vote with the 80s girl.

Throughout the celebration, the witch’s daughter kept everyone laughing with her cleverness and enthusiasm. She was the real winner of the day, and we were so happy to have her with us.

Check out a few snapshots of event and Happy Halloween!

 

Create your own video slideshowat animoto.com.

What new skills do PR professionals need today?

By Neila Matheny

Every day in PR is different.  The one consistent element in the public relations industry is that it is always changing.  In the past, PR pros stuffed hard-copy press kits for big industry tradeshows and sent press releases to contact lists via fax machine. Now, everything is done online, sent via USB devices and even trade show press offices are virtual.

Here at Engage PR, we were recently discussing what new tools PR pros need to have in their toolbox as social media and online videos continue to become a large part of the PR landscape.  We found that a lot of the skills that we all use on a daily basis were not the skills we learned about in college courses or in our first PR positions. This video highlights many of the unique attributes the Engage PR team brings to our clients’ public relations programs, as well as some of the unique qualities about the Engage PR team and our working environment.

 

 

What skills do you think PR professionals need to perfect today?  Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.  And to see more about Engage PR and our clients, please visit our YouTube channel.

The Power of Positivity in the Workplace

By Becky Frost

More than a decade ago, when grunge filled the airwaves and flannel filled our closets, I spoke with a friend about university choices. As we debated private versus state schools, she said, “To me, education is what you bring to it and what you make of it.”

Fast forward to the present. The flannel is gone and my CD collection gathers dust as I make full use of my iPod.  Yet the truth of my friend’s observation remains the same. Largely, our situations – no matter what they may be – are affected by the attitude with which we approach them.

In thinking more about this topic, I connected with Kathy Olberts of Quantum Teams, who recently released a report on positivity in the workplace. The report identified seven key aspects to building strong teams and promoting a positive work environment. It also included insights into each of the following positivity factors.   

• Optimism
  Our team has an inspiring shared vision.  We are enthusiastic, forward looking, and appreciative of each other. There are low levels of cynicism, pessimism, helplessness,  hopelessness, and dwelling in the past.
• Trust
  We have a shared commitment to open communication. We trust each other to express differing points of view without eliciting negativity. Our team does not operate in a  fear-based environment.
• Respect
  There is an atmosphere of mutual respect and genuine positive regard within our  team.  All team members are highly valued. Contempt and hostility are not tolerated. 
• Effective Communication
  Clear and efficient communication is valued over less direct approaches such as  politicizing, gossiping, “sugar coating,” or stonewalling.
• Constructive Relationship with Conflict
  Conflict is seen as providing an opportunity for discovery, growth, and creativity rather  than something to be avoided.  We directly and promptly address conflicts and listen well  to each other.  We invite and provide constructive feedback. The team avoids criticizing, defensiveness, and finger pointing. 
• Camaraderie/Caring
  There is a strong sense of camaraderie and belonging on the team. Our team celebrates  and acknowledges accomplishments. Empathy, playfulness, and humor are present.
• Values Diversity
  The team is open-minded and values differences in ideas, backgrounds, perspectives, personalities, approaches, and lifestyles. Curiosity is valued. We draw out all  opinions on our team, even the unpopular ones.   

One of the many reasons I enjoy working at Engage is that these positivity points are emulated across the board. As an employee of an agency, I have the chance to interact with various teams, both internally and on a client level, and I see that the when these seven points are in place, work is enjoyable and teams progress.

Where Is Your Confidential Data?

By Becky Frost

I’ve yet to meet anyone who enjoys moving. The packing, the excessive number of boxes (who knew that holiday decorations could take up 12 boxes?), the long drive, and then settling back in to the normal routine in a different location.

After a recent move, I sat in front of a blank computer screen, praying to the Gods of connectivity that my Internet access would work. After some initial bumps, it did, and telecommuting has been a breeze.

I have a friend, however, whose experience was anything but easy. After a few days of dealing with her local service provider, she gave up and began linking up via free connections at coffee shops. This turned out to be a great workaround for her for a few days until she could get service at home.