Public Relations (PR) Summed Up

In two columns in the Daily Post, about how totally intoxicating shaping opinion can be, and PR-101 and bloodsuckers…

HMPRESENTLY: Intoxicating

Posted on December 12, 2022 by Harvey Radin

Even after attempting to shape opinion throughout my PR career, when I stepped back from PR several years ago, I soon realized I had to keep fiddling with opinion.

Whether it was shaping opinion of businesses, of an industry, of products and services… I was hooked on it. It was intoxicating. And it still is!

So… after adventuring for many decades, in business, I began transitioning to writing guest articles and columns, attempting, early on, to shape opinion of disruptive businesses, like short-term rental companies (STRs).

Several years ago, a Nevada business publication ran an opinion piece I’d written about STRs, and dockless scooter and bike rental companies, and then, years after that, hearing about STRs, perhaps, exacerbating the shortage of affordable housing in your residential neighborhoods, I began mentioning STRs, in some of my Daily Post articles.

And, I’ve been writing about politics and politicians, quite a bit, for a number of reasons.

Because, for one thing, as a child, and later, as an adult, fairly early in my career, I had known people who had to flee from places, ruled by dictators. That sticks in your mind, hearing what they had to go through. And now, hearing about some elected officials, here in America, apparently flirting with authoritarianism and dictatorial rulers, “cozying up,” as some media are reporting. That doesn’t sit well with me.

Probably 80 or more times, I’ve mentioned former President Trump, in guest articles, and, at times, I’ve mentioned others in politics… like Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, for example. Representative Boebert, who possibly squeaked by in her re-election campaign this past November. With only a few hundred votes separating her from her opponent, a recount has been underway. I’ve mentioned her, in several columns, and was even inspired to compose hip hop lyrics about her.

If she happens to lose, maybe my commentary and lyrics caught on with voters? But even if she wins by only a thin margin, maybe I had something to do with that. As they say in business and politics… for me, maybe it’ll be a win-win, regardless of the outcome.

Unless things have changed, since I was in the PR profession, measuring success can be murky. It was ‘metrics,’ we used to talk about, wondering if the metrics — some data of some sort or another — was adding up to success.

So, maybe with this Boebert thing, I have some data, a metric, of sorts, I can point to.

And, lately, since the media have been reporting on a potential “Trump problem” — his popularity with his base, with his acolytes, may be diminishing — maybe what I’ve been writing about him, 80 times or so, helped shaped opinion, and maybe that’s another metric, in my ‘win’ column.

Sometimes, just a word or two might do the trick, shaping opinion, if somehow you can keep certain words top of mind with folks. Words like ‘agitated rooster,’ for instance. I’ve been thinking about those words.

There’s an Ohio Congressman, I’ve mentioned, in a column, or two whom I’m seeing, in my mind’s eye, as an agitated rooster. He’s always jumping around, investigating one thing and another, and complaining, much of the time.

Maybe, out your way, ‘agitated rooster’ might describe some of your local officials?

Or ‘bloodsuckers?’ When I was a kid dipping my feet in a lake, out in the Midwest, a bloodsucker — a leech — got between my toes.

I can picture some politicians, as that scary little creature that had firmly taken some control over me. If you’ve ever had to pry a bloodsucker off some part of your anatomy, you’ll know what I mean.

‘Bloodsuckers’ and ‘agitated roosters’… rather evocative words.

HMPRESENTLY: PR-101 and the Archuleta County BOCC

Posted on December 14, 2022 by Harvey Radin

When only 4% of the folks weighing in on a survey “‘strongly agree’ that the (Archuleta) County government can be trusted to make good fiscal decisions,” that’s a PR situation, for county officials. In the PR business, problems aren’t problems, they’re ‘situations.’

In PR lingo, this particular situation might be described as a ‘concerning deficit of trust among survey respondents’… to say the least.

Sometimes, the rule of thumb in PR, might involve owning up to what’s going haywire, depending on circumstances. So, a business might come up with some wishy-washy PR lingo, like “We’re aware of the problem, and we’re taking immediate steps to address it.”

Or, with something stronger, if there’s the intestinal fortitude to do that.

That’s sort of PR-101, addressing problems, head-on.

Now, of course, I’ve got to qualify everything, since I’m out on the West Coast, quite a distance from Archuleta County, but even if I resided out your way, I’d still have to speculate about the exact nature of this trust issue, afflicting your County officials. Especially since, as noted in the Daily Post, the “citizen task force to recommend new STR (short-term rental) policies” has been holding meetings “behind closed doors.”

When there are trust issues… maybe that’s not the way to build trust?

So even if I was right down the street, that’s what I’d be running up against… closed doors, in all likelihood.

In my recent article about shaping opinion, I mentioned the power of only a word, or two, sometimes, in shaping opinion. “Agitated rooster,” I suggested for describing an Ohio congressman, who sometimes comes across that way. And I mentioned “bloodsuckers,” as another evocative word.

The hope, if maybe not always the expectation, is that officials everywhere — in Washington DC, and state, county, city and town governments — won’t be bloodsuckers.

Because once they land on some part of a human being, those little bloodsuckers sure can take advantage of things.