My Blogenberg of last Tuesday elicited some interesting, to-the-point questions from Jim Durbin of brandstorming. In my post, I talked about our intensive effort to understand and navigate a communications market that is becoming ever more segmented. I talked about our efforts to expand “media relations� at a time when Americans are expanding their own, often individual definition of “media.�

Durbin asked three questions:

• How do you quantify and bill for that time?
• Is time spent talking to a blogger the same value as talking to a friendly reporter?
• Is writing a blog post the same value as writing an editorial?

His questions go to the heart of how I must look at today’s PR challenges as a businessman. After all, my ultimate job is to make sure I can keep a small PR shop in a city full of behemoth PR shops running, and running profitably.

In my last Blogenberg I wrote that this more sophisticated approach to outreach is really “a new modification to what I’ve been telling clients for more than a decade.â€? The starting point for every campaign, every outreach project remains the same: Who does the client want to reach? Everything else reveals itself in the answer. The difference is that there is much more to reveal itself. It used to be that the strategy available to us was traditional media, with various cuts by market, circulation, audience, etc. Today, there are myriad strategies available to us – from traditional media to blogs to podcasts to online and offline word of mouth. (more…)

I’m placing a big bet. I’m betting my business (12 years of toil) that I know where public relations must head. I’m betting that I know how we’ll be telling the truth a decade or two from now. (In the future I’ll Blogenberg about truth and PR – and if you’re now thinking that’s an oxymoron, your cynicism needs a dose of creativity.)

Recently I attended a press conference at the National Press Club. It was extremely well run. It was very well attended by national press. I’ve no doubt the PR firm that did the work – with whom I was very impressed – celebrated “mission accomplished.â€? But accomplished what? I’ll tell you what – they accomplished getting their news to the same intellectual elite, opinion leaders, and politicians that represent the target of every National Press Club press conference. That’s not unimportant. But it’s not enough, not if you want to make a real difference in how people think and behave. (more…)

Inside my head so often are the anxieties and pressures of working tirelessly (actually, often very tired) to build a public relations business – the pressures of marketing and pursuing contracts, taking care of employees, hiring new employees, meeting client needs, etc. – that I forget my blessings. It’s too easy to do, because owning a small business always feels, even on the best days, at least a bit precarious. Today, I’m reminded.

Today is the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson taking the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers. I can thank him for many of my blessings. In part, I can thank him for three: one 18-year-old son and 13-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. I could not have safely and happily married their mother were it not for what Jackie Robinson started, because he started America’s look in the mirror on race relations, a look that required Rosa Parks, Emmett Till, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others to make the reflection so painful it forced change. I would not be the father to the three children God blessed me with.

Most Americans today take Jackie Robinson for granted. They need to read Jackie Robinson by Arnold Rampersad, probably the best biography of the man. One of my proudest possessions is a Jackie Robinson autographed baseball from his playing days (at least I’m 95% sure it’s his autograph and, if you know anything about sports memorabilia, that’s pretty good).

And some of the proudest things in my life – I’ve got to look back and thank Jackie.

Regular Blogenbergers will soon learn that I’m fascinated by a construct: choosing race. My wife is black. We have three children of varying hues. Race relations are very intimate for me.

Top of the news are two examples of choosing race: the Imus outrage and the Duke lacrosse tragedy.

The cackling cacophony that passes for American discourse has chosen race as the battle line over Don Imus. They’ve decided that, when Imus called Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy headed hos,� it’s a race relations battle. From Fox News Channel – which I watch every day – to ESPN’s The Dan Patrick Show – proof that an IQ is not a prerequisite for garnering riches in America – they fight over why it’s okay for black hip-hop artists to use these words and worse, and why it’s not okay for a white New York City cowboy radio jock.

They’ve made the wrong choice. They’ve chosen the wrong reason to be angry. For sure, it’s tasteless for white people to say “nappy headedâ€? and “ho,â€? but it’s not prima facie evidence of racism. (The “nâ€? word is different of course.) Why Imus should be reviled is that he attacked young women with the howitzer of his national radio show who were, certainly within this context, innocent. He destroyed a memory for these young women. (more…)

This is inside my head. Right now, it’s sitting, still on top of my shoulders, in my office, which is painted gold, just off the common areas of my shop, Rosenberg Communications, which is painted cranberry zinger. That’s right, cranberry zinger. I don’t think it’s an ordinary PR shop. I don’t think it’s an ordinary head.

For more than 20 years I’ve been doing PR in Washington, DC. If you’ve looked at our website, you’ve hopefully seen my bio and seen how impressed I am with myself. My favorite line about Washington, DC is, “Do you know how important I think I am?� Kind of sums up life in this city right there.

My favorite line about running a PR shop comes from Winston Churchill. That’s right Winston Churchill. Actually, it’s two lines – one about Winston Churchill and the other by Winston Churchill. I recently finished Roy Jenkins’ Churchill. It is 900 pages of type so small that I’m going to bill Jenkins’ publisher for the bifocals my eye doctor says I’m soon to need. (Jenkins died before this book was published.) Nonetheless, because of its excruciating detail, the book is the greatest study of greatness I’ve ever read. In it he describes Churchill this way: “Driven men are not often the most balanced. But they are generally the most dedicated.â€? That’s me. I gave up on being balanced a long time ago. I’m not talking about Oprah-style claptrap of balancing work and family. I’ve got my unique ways of doing that while working 60-70 hours a week (keep clicking in and, I’m positive, you’ll hear about them!). I’m talking about inside my head – it’s not balanced (which, if you keep clicking in, you’ll see!) but, thus far, it’s serving me real well. It served Churchill well, and you should read Jenkins’ book. (more…)