Practical tips to help people look their best in your photos

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You can look this good!I’m a “word” guy. And my photography skills are limited to point and click. That’s never really been a problem so long as my photography was limited to pictures of the family and pets.

But as I try to make ProPR visually appealing, I find myself taking photos of people both at events and in interviews. The results often are not flattering to my subjects.

So I was happy to see some practical tips at Digital Camera U to make my subjects more photogenic. These tips don’t involve playing with F stops and shutter speeds (what are these?) Instead, they focus on making the subject feel comfortable and appear natural in front of the lense through body posture, expression and dress. Even a technically challenged person like me can master these.

Thanks to Mike Yamamoto at Besoterica Blog for pointing to this site.

Conference Blogging: The FPRA shows how it should be done

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FPRA 2006 ConferenceA hat tip to the Florida Public Relations Association for the very successful live blogging around the recent FPRA annual conference. To my mind, FPRA blog established a new standard that other PR organizations should study and emulate at their next meetings.

What did FPRA do right?

First, they publicized it in advance of the start of the conference through established blogs. I spotted lead up posts by Josh Hallett at hyku and Erin Caldwell at the Forward Blog. By having established bloggers post about the conference blog in advance of the conference, their established communities of readers were able to subscribe to the conference blog in time to catch all of the action.

Second, the bloggers actually blogged frequently. In my experience, this has been the most frequent failure of other organizations that established conference blogs that remained virtually empty (and unvisited?) throughout the conference. FPRA’s conference bloggers – Josh Hallett, Chris Gent, Jennifer Wakefield and Bob O’Malley – posted more than 70 times leading up to and during the conference. More than enough to attract attention.

Third, the quality of the posts was high – a good mix of informative longer posts with quick hits. This sustained attention.

Fourth, the posts prompted a real discussion. Some posts had as many as 14 comments – which is a lot compared to other PR conference blogs I’ve visited.

Finally, they used multimedia to give visitors that “being there” feeling. A nod to Josh Hallett for introducing hallway interview MP3s to his posts in addition to Flickr photos. A nice touch.

The complete conference postings can be viewed under the Annual Conference category on the FPRA blog.

Congratulations to the FPRA, especially their hardworking bloggers, Josh, Chris, Jennifer and Bob!

A shortcut to finding value in blogs?

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Mark EvansMark Evans has an interesting summertime post. Writing from lakeside at the cottage, he ponders the value that he derives from blogging.

As for the blogging community, it’s getting bigger but I’m not convinced it’s getting better. There’s what I would describe as a lot of piling on going on – people blogging for the sake of blogging rather doing it because they something to say. … [B]logging should be adding to the conversation. I come across too many posts that are simply cut and paste jobs of other peoples’ posts or press releases with no value-add. Where’s the value in that?

…

Truth be told, blogging is a labour of love. To do it well takes a lot of time and work, which probably explains why many blogs are left wanting. It’s the search for quality that makes me so interested in tools that can separate the wheat from the chaff. I want something that brings me the well-written, thoughtful, insightful blogs – perhaps some kind of recommendation engine that uses my blogroll or RSS feeds as a guide. That’s not a lot to ask is it?

Mark is bang on in his observation that blogging does take a lot of time. Not just the time to write, but even more importantly, the time required to explore and participate in the conversation initiated by others. I probably read 3 to 4 hours for every hour I spend posting. Does that make me a prolific poster? Not by a long shot. But it enables me to listen, consider and learn before I initiate my own posts.

I’ve heard many people express the desire for a “recommendation engine.” And I’ll be honest, I use the New PR peer recommendation site to check in with what other PR practitioners are reading. However, I think there is no substitute for reading extensively myself. It is in the act of exploration of new blogs, reading not only the most recent post but looking back at previous posts, that I gain a real sense for each new blogger I discover. And it is this critical reading that enables me to separate the chaff from the wheat.

I remember in high school that we all longed for the magic shortcut. For many people that was “Coles Notes.” Of course, we quickly learned that while Coles Notes would let us fake it on an exam, providing the basic plot and a superficial sheen of analysis, there was no substitute for reading the original book. Only by immersing ourselves in the full text could we truly be transported to the alternate world that the author had created and truly appreciate what he or she was trying to convey beyond the mere storyline.

I believe that the same is true with the blogosphere. Beware shortcuts. They may create the illusion of engagement in the conversation. But that’s all it is – an illusion. To properly participate in the conversation, we must spend much more time listening than we do talking. Listening as much as writing. Only then will we derive the full benefit of communication and community that this medium offers us.

State of the Blogosphere – It's the trend that is important, not the snapshot

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In the wake of David Sifry’s latest State of the Blogosphere post, a number of thoughtful commentators are challenging Sifry’s estimate of Technorati50 million blogs. A principal line of argument revolves around whether the Technorati numbers create a distorted, inflated picture by including inactive blogs. Some argue that the actual size of the active blogosphere is much smaller, perhaps closer to 1.6 million blogs.

It is important to gain a better understanding of the actual participation in the blogosphere by developing a more sophisticated, refined data on the distribution and actual behaviour of bloggers.

Having said that, some of the discussion reminds me of the debate that political pollsters often engage in. They focus on differences in the results between their competing polls and argue at length about whose methodology is superior.

On the other hand, political pros – the people who actually use the polls – assume from the start that methodology will vary between pollsters and that these different methodologies will yield different results at any given time. What they focus on is the trends over time between polls with known and consistent methodology. This analysis enables them to understand what is really going on and to look for the drivers of behaviour, not simply the manifestation of that behaviour.

When I look at David Sifry’s (or anybody’s) stats, I look for consistency of methodology and trends over time. The ongoing addition of new bloggers. The accelaration of the discussion through both new posts and comments. And the understanding that many bloggers post rarely or abandon their blogs altogether. That’s the real value for me.

And of course, once I’ve drawn everything I can from his results, I will look for other data sets that will show me other things (e.g. active blogs.)

So, I hope the conversation continues. I will be an active follower of it (and occasional participant.) But let’s remember, there is real value in following Sifry’s results over time, regardless of whether we agree with the details of the snapshot at any particular time.

Goals and Objectives, Strategies and Tactics

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Over the past 20+ years, I’ve seen a lot of communications plans. And I have marvelled at how often the authors of these plans have been unable to discern the difference between goals and objectives or strategies and tactics.

Chris Clarke Student PRIn a recent episode of Inside PR, Chris Clarke asked asked listeners if they could explain the difference between communication goals and communication tactics.

Shel HoltzShel Holtz provided an answer that linked strategies and tactics to goals and objectives. I found his explanation to be one of the most useful I have ever heard. Simple clear and concise.

Of course, because it was an audio comment, you had to hear it. And because podcasts aren’t as readily searchable as blogs, I’ve decided to write down the essence of Shel’s explanation so that I, the people I work with and other practitioners can refer to it in future.

Shel recalled a presentation by Wilma Matthews, the Co-Author of On Deadline: Managing Media Relations. In her presentation, Wilma described a four step strategic planning model:

  • Set a goal: the business outcome. What you want your communications to achieve.
  • Establish strategies: The broad approaches you are going to take in order to achieve the goal.
  • Define objectives for each strategy. Objectives are the measurable tasks that will be undertaken in order to realize the strategies.
  • Develop tactics – the tools that will be used in order to achieve the objectives.

Wilma used the example of World War II in order to illustrate the application of these concepts.

  • Goal: Win the war.
  • Strategy: Surround Germany to choke off the resources that fueled its military force.
  • Objective: Invade France. This is measurable. You’ll know if you’ve succeeded and to what degree.
  • Tactics: What will you use to do this? e.g. ships, planes, soldiers, etc.

In summary:

  • Goals = the broad outcomes
  • Strategies = the approaches you will take
  • Objectives = the measurable steps to achieve the strategies
  • Tactics =  the tools you will use

Makes sense to me. What do you think?

Blogtipping: Blogging Me Blogging You

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Ed LeeA blog I like: Ed Lee’s Blogging Me Blogging You

Things I like:

1) Ed’s brighter than the average person and his posts show it. Always insightful.

2) Ed Tracksback and he comments. He engages in the conversation not just on his own blog but on others. He understands social media.

3) Ed brings a trans-Atlantic perspective to public relations. He reflects on his experience both in the UK and Canada. Just enough difference of perspective. Not the same old same old view of the pack.

Tip: Ed, the embedded video is great. Please include pictures with all your posts. The right pictures draw attention, enhance the appearance of the page and reinforce the headline.