Boring! Boring! Boring!

I am thoroughly impressed by how boring a lot of communications professionals' publications are. Half the stuff I get in the mail I can't even read it is so visually uninteresting. I wonder why the very publications that are put out to attract people who communicate for a living are not designed to effectively do so.

Not all of them are boring. Most graphic design and advertising stuff: print, Communication Arts and local pubs like Oz Magazine and Create are fairly interesting to interact with. They are engaging. However, PR and marketing pubs...blech. The majority of them are just not visually interesting, much less stimulating. Why?

I want to learn about the latest trends and tips and studies in PR and Marketing. I want to file away articles and keep back issues on my shelves for years...but I am bored before I even pick them up...half the time publications get left on my desk for months before I finally forget my book at the house and desperately need something to read on the train ride home.

While this seems like a rant, and I suppose it is, I actually was first inspired to write this because of a particularly good, fun, direct mail industry publication I have been getting for the past year or so. It is called Deliver, and it is put out by the USPS for goodness sake, who does a better job of catching my eye, and quite honestly the secretary's eye, than associations devoted to "catching one's eye." After all, the secretary sorts through the mail and makes the first cuts as to what ends up in our mailboxes. I am sure many other company's have the same thing happening in their offices.


Another publication that has pleasantly surprised me in the past year is IABC Atlanta's most recent format for their newsletter, empart. It is interesting and different. A huge improvement on the original. I delight it it's charming size and use of two colors.

In closing, I thank all publications who have dared to make me excited, and I ask all publishers in a general plea on behalf of readers of all kinds: Don't be afraid to make it interesting.

And of course...Happy Halloween!

Yay!

We don't know exactly what level of awards we won yet, but we just heard today that we won something from PRSA for the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta "Hope & Will" speech, a Hyde Farm Op-Ed and the Sumter Regional Hospital "Community Minded...Just Like You" campaign, and from IABC we won something for the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta "Hope & Will" speech,

the HealthPlex at Sumter Regional Grand Opening campaign and pro-bono client, Cochran Mill Nature Center's, "Nature + Nurture" Volunteer Logo.

Yay! We will let you know what level of award when we do!

And PR for all…

A couple of months ago I read an article about a new franchise called PR Store in Inc. Magazine. I read a less positive article about the same franchise a little bit later. This stirred up in me the concept of communications tools being available to all. PR Store’s concept is that everyone, not just the guys who can afford to spend tons on money on it, should utilize the tools of Public Relations in their everyday business plans, and be able to do so at a reasonable price. Too often PR is seen as a luxury method of reaching and shaping audiences’ perceptions, and it is rarely thought of as a standard or cost effective method for small and many medium sized companies.

I believe in the PR Store philosophy. The counterpoint to this sunny idealism is that when you start taking a business service that is considered an “art form,” such as: public relations, marketing, copywriting, advertising and graphic design, and begin to sell it as a bargain basement product, minus the (costly) creative process and the planning involved in high quality business services, you are stripping the service of its value. It is somehow “cheapening,” lowering the art form and diluting the talent pool.

I can see how this might tug at one’s heart. Especially when a communications professional has spent years developing their personal skills, making contacts and honing their practical skills. This sort of commoditizing of art forms happens all the time, and with it comes, yep, mediocre versions of the original form of art.

I say so what. There is a version appropriate for everyone. And God Bless America that for every business need there is a product/service scrambling to fill that need, no matter what the price or market. Yes it stinks that the “art” of what you or I might do for a living is now being be done for a lot cheaper by folks with possibly a lot less experience and skill, but if it means the possibility of extending and extolling the virtues of communications services to more businesses in more markets, I say yay, let there be marketing, copywriting, advertising, graphic design and PR for all…

What do you think?