I haven’t celebrated a PR Winner of the Week in several, several weeks, but this story could not go unnoticed. In fact, if you had told me this brand would be one of my PR winners, well, I wouldn’t have predicted that. But, congratulations to McDonald’s in Oklahoma, owned by Tim Rich and his wife.
I heard the story on K-LOVE, a national Christian radio station. A McDonald’s owned by Tim Rich is closed for renovations. This happens often, and typically employees either find new jobs or go without pay while the business is closed. However, Rich and his wife came up with a better plan. The Riches set aside $120,000 and told employees they would continue to be paid if they gave back to their community. Read more from CNBC.
I’ve got to say it. I’m not a fan of McDonald’s. Not because I think the brand brainwashes me and my children and makes us overweight. Actually, I tend to think I’m in control of what I eat and I also teach my children to make healthy eating choices. In fact, I think my daughter has been to McDonald’s fewer than five times and she’s turning three this month. She has never asked me to take her to McDonald’s. That being said, I don’t typically choose McDonald’s because I think their food is mostly unhealthy and I don’t feel very good after I eat it. To be fair, we don’t eat much fast food at all. (So when we do, french fries and sweet tea are a must-have treat.)
While it’s hard to advertise McDonald’s to me (i.e. get me to purchase its food), it is still possible for McDonald’s to use PR techniques on me (i.e. get me to have a relationship with its brand.) You see, while I may not choose its food, I do choose its play areas. McDonald’s restaurants make excellent rest stops when traveling with children. So, the brand does win in getting me to think positively about it.
And to the Riches and their McDonald’s in Oklahoma, congratulations, you are my PR Winner of the Week. Since hearing your story, I’ve been thinking maybe I should use paid time off to volunteer each year. After saving my vacation and sick days for two maternity leaves, I feel like I have an abundance of time available to me, and now I am praying how I may put it to good use. Have you ever noticed you can’t spell Good without God? I just noticed that.
What volunteer opportunities would you pursue in your community using paid time off?
As a news writer, I embrace the concept of stating your message as concisely as possible. As a creative writer, I also love to wrap myself in imagery. Maybe I am wrong, but I get the feeling most people familiar with news writing think creative writing by its nature is wordy.
If that’s what you think, then I disagree. Whether writing for news sources or recreational sources, your goal should be to get your message across without using redundant words, not necessarily to cut useful information for the sake of word count. Superfluity is where writing goes wrong, and it happens in all genres.
For example, I just read a sentence that says, “… 88 presenters from 20 different departments at …” Did you catch it?
I’ll give you a hint. I re-wrote the sentence to say, “… 88 presenters from 20 departments at …”
To be clear, yes, these were 20 departments within the same institution. Therefore, telling your audience the departments are different is unnecessary and verbose.
(I badly wanted to say “completely unnecessary,” but then I would be missing my point.)
My best tips for avoiding wordiness:
Read your draft multiple times.
Read it out loud. (Sure, you may feel silly talking to yourself, but reading aloud is a good skill to practice.)
Don’t just use a phrase because it’s common or comfortable. Make each word serve a purpose.
I was typing an email this morning to my husband’s cousin, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to end it. As one of my favorite people in the whole world and someone in my extended family, I do love her. But closing an email with “love” doesn’t seem to be something my husband’s family uses often (or ever?) So, while with my family I would normally say “Love” or something similar, I wasn’t exactly sure how to end it. But I knew it had to be something stellar. After all, she sent me some snail mail recently addressed to, “The Fabulous, Beautiful Kandi.”
“Websearcher” definitely had some great suggestions, especially for the professional world. I find “Best Regards” (and my friend @VanaeShope agreed) to be a favorite for business emails, especially ones sent to international clients. It’s fairly neutral, and I always try to be wary of how things will be taken by other cultures. And most often, I use “Thank you” in business emails.
But back to my dilemma this morning. How did I solve it? I went with “YOU are the beautiful, fabulous one!” She truly is.
What unique phrases do you use to close your emails?
Who knew printing photos could be so complicated? Not me, until Christmas 2009. I used Walgreens Web site to create a Christmas card using a photo I had taken of my sweet one-year-old daughter. I made a few adjustments to the photo in Photoshop and off the card went for printing. When I picked up my prints, I was appalled. My daughter’s beautiful golden red hair looked about like orange juice. Thankfully Walgreens Photo Center has a 100% satisfaction guarantee, so I desaturated the red in my photo and they printed my improved card. But what was my lesson?
Calibrate. I learned computer monitors need to be calibrated to match printers to get reliable results. Um, ok, how do you do this? Well, I started by purchasing a Spyder 3 Pro from Datacolor to calibrate my computer monitor. This calibration tool is super easy to use and definitely improved the quality of my photo editing. But it wasn’t enough. I kept finding over and over that I was not 100% satisfied with Walgreens prints no matter how many times they reprinted for me. I could send the same photo file to two different Walgreens and get two different results. Every time I had a photo printed, I kept thinking, I need to find a new photo lab. But I also knew I needed to somehow calibrate my monitor to the lab’s printer. But how?
In all of my research to find a new photo lab, I did discover part of my dissatisfaction with photo prints may be a result of Photoshop. Apparently most photo printers need your color settings to be sRGB, and my settings were embedding an Adobe 1998 color setting that tends to lead to gray and muted photos.
Shop around. So, my husband and I decided to do a little testing. First, with my camera set to save photos in sRGB, we sent a photo straight from the camera to Walgreens. We then sent the same photo opened in Photoshop and saved with the Adobe 1998 color profile to Walgreens for printing. And last, we sent the same photo opened in Photoshop and saved in sRGB with a small amount of editing to Walgreens for printing. While the last picture turned out the closest to what we expected (the first two were on the gray side), we still thought we could do better.
I then sent the same three photos to a local photo printer, Fleetwood Photo, for testing. While their prices are a bit higher than Walgreens, the results were also extremely good. For one, Fleetwood Photo does color correction. When I went in to pick up my photos, the very nice employee was able to tell me that the photos had each had a small amount of yellow taken out of them. They looked great. Of course, I was warned not to do heavy editing in Photoshop because my monitor is likely not calibrated to their printer. Hmm, where had I heard that before? So, the question remained, how can I calibrate my monitor to a photo lab’s printer?
Well, the third photo printing vendor in our test is MPix. While their prices are as good as or better than Walgreens, they are mail order only, so I also have to pay shipping costs. Which means I also can’t get my prints in about an hour. (I was able to get them in about an hour with Fleetwood.) Well, I sent MPix my same three images yesterday around noon and I got an email last night saying they had shipped. While I’m still waiting to receive those photos, here’s what I can tell you. One, MPix also does color correction on their photos. I will be curious to see how similar their prints are to the ones from Fleetwood Photo. Two, I found that MPix offers a calibration kit. Basically, they send you an image on a disc and a printout of the image. You open the image on your computer and then you calibrate your monitor to look like the printed image. Pretty cool. I ordered it today. I can also tell you that my aunt, an ex-professional photographer, used to use MPix’s “pro” site for ordering photos, and her prints were always beautiful, so I expect to be extremely happy with my MPix prints.
So, where does this leave me? Well, I have a feeling I will print through both MPix and Fleetwood Photo depending on my printing needs. I can definitely say I’ve learned a lot through this process. But … I’m wondering if Fleetwood Photo would let me come in and shadow one day. I would like to learn if their color correction process is automated by the printer or something they manually do with each photo. Surely it’s automated. Either way, I think a day shadowing could teach me even more about printing processes and hopefully improve my photography and photo editing processes, too.
UPDATE: The photos from Mpix were received and the prints are amazing. Their color correction created a slightly different print than Fleetwood Photo’s. In all instances I preferred the prints from Mpix, but my husband preferred Fleetwood Photo on one of the prints. Overall, if we can wait the shipping time, we plan to print through Mpix.
What tips do you have for photo calibration and/or printing?
It’s official – KandiKreatives Mag “Pieces of Me” is now in print … if you consider a blogazine “in print.” In the very least, it is no longer a dream. I still have plenty of work to do to really get it going such as styling it, but I decided in this case it may be best to work backwards – just do it! Then worry about how it looks.
The point is number one on my list of ways to amp up my writing is now in the works. I’m hoping it will also help keep me in practice with another hobby of mine: photography. Afterall, what would a blogazine be without pictures?
And since I am a natural-born cheerleader and everyone needs a little encouragement (especially from themselves!), it’s time for one of my favorite cheers (learned while playing a slot machine at Harrah’s in Cherokee): Go Kandi, go! Go Kandi, go! Go Kandi, Go Kandi, Go Kandi, GO!
Eight months have passed since my last blog post? What happened? Several things: lack of passion, lack of focus, and lack of time because I had a baby. Maybe it would be better to say my priorities temporarily changed. Thanks to my friend @VanaeShope, I was reminded that some people do enjoy my writing and maybe I should get back to it. So, what’s next?
For starters, I hope to launch a second blog – ironic I know since I’m having trouble committing to this one. But I actually think a second blog may be one of the answers to my lack of interest in blogging. My inspiration for a while has been to start KandiKreatives Mag – a magazine blog that will allow me to write about any topic I am inspired by. And the pieces of that blog that fit into public relations, writing, branding, presentation, etc, will fit nicely with this blog. I have always wanted my own magazine. Granted, I always imagined it would have pages you could hold in your hands, I am excited to get started on this next project. Besides, the more I write … well, the more I’ll write. Right? (Did I take that too far?)
Second, and this one’s tougher, when I am inspired to write a blog post, I need to make notes or put it in a voice recorder. It’s best to write during your creative time of the day. My challenge is that my creative time is in the morning when I’m in the shower and driving to work – not exactly opportune moments to whip out a blog post. So, maybe a voice recorder is my answer. Then my challenge will be moving my message from recorder to keyboard, but hey, it’s baby steps.
Third, when I am typing a blog post, I need to tune out the rest of the world. I keep getting distracted by a Twitter or Facebook post and my mind gets off track. Currently, I’m having a very tough time finishing this post with all the excitement over the Royal Wedding (sorry to the folks who are tired of hearing about it, but it’s a historic moment and I had to record it.)
So, this morning I was listening to “Unwritten” by Natasha Beddingfield on Pandora, and the lyrics were exactly what I was thinking about my blog – today is where my book begins and the rest is still unwritten.
In the days before the Internet and email, some peoples’ biggest problem was having a thought, speaking it, and then wishing they could take it back. In those days, while others could repeat what you said, there was no permanent documentation that you had said something embarrassing or otherwise damaging to your reputation.
And then came the Internet. The new pattern: Think it … type it … hit send. I would have thought that somewhere between “type it” and “hit send” folks would take two seconds to take a breath and think about what they’ve typed before sharing it. Yet, it almost seems as if the disease has worsened. We write and send emails in haste when we should write them, let them sit, and then re-read them before we hit send. Or, wait until we have cooled off before even drafting the email. And that’s the beauty of email. You can get your thoughts out immediately and then pause to be sure you want to permanently document what you are about to say. Let’s be honest, in today’s times of archiving, mirroring and everything else, it’s nearly impossible to fully delete what we share over the Internet.
Now social media is playing an even bigger role in peoples’ inability to censor themselves. Apparently, the drive to share all of ones thoughts with the rest of the listening world is much stronger than the need to use a little discretion. I recently read Jeff Bulla’s blog entry, “11 Ways to Lose Your Job on Facebook,” and I am surprised that even though use of the Internet has been widely popular for about 20 years (giving us about 20 years worth of examples for blog posts on this topic), people are still not using caution when posting to sites such as Facebook or sending emails.
Even so, here are a few of my tips for using discretion with the Internet:
1. If you wouldn’t print it in the newspaper or in a magazine, you shouldn’t post it on the Internet. Why? Because even though you may protect your accounts, it is still likely that it could be read by an audience larger than if you did actually print it in the newspaper. And, as mentioned above, it’s just as permanent. Maybe more so.
2. Take a moment to consider if the time of day you are posting is appropriate. Is there anyone who could read your post who knows you should be doing something besides spending time on Twitter or Facebook (like your boss)?
3. Take a moment to consider if anyone could read your post whom you do not wish to share the information with. You may not be friends with your boss on Facebook, but you may be friends with a co-worker who is friends with your boss. If your co-worker comments on your post, your boss will likely be able to read what you posted. Also, take a moment to consider what you post on a friend’s wall. For example, if you work in a doctor’s office, you probably don’t want to post on a friend’s wall, “Hey, I noticed you have an appointment with Dr. So and So tomorrow.” (This is a fictitious example.) This is a violation of HIPAA and you could lose your job. And possibly lose your friend if your friend didn’t want to share that he had a doctor’s appointment.
4. Pause long enough to re-read (maybe even aloud) what you are about to post after you type it. I have typed many status updates into Facebook only to backspace when I realize I don’t really want mass people to know what I am about to say. If there are a few people I still want to share the information with, I opt for Facebook’s email feature or a text message. And if the information is really sensitive, I use the phone to make a phone call or two. There are just some things that shouldn’t be put in writing because you never know when software may glitch, you may be hacked, or a site such as Facebook will decide it owns your data.
All of this brings me to say that while it would be nice if we could separate our personal and professional lives, it’s an unreasonable expectation in these times of using social media. If you share yourself publicly (Facebook may offer some privacy protection, but really, it’s still sharing in a fairly public way), then it’s fairly unreasonable to expect that a) your boss won’t find out and b) your boss can’t use it in determining if you are a fit employee. In fact, by the very nature of the word private, I don’t think it has any place in the term social media.
Do you have a personal experience you wish to share involving a social media faux pas?
In the beginning I thought it was cute, what funny message will some spammer send me today that almost looks like a real message? I even considered a blog post, posting my favorite spam messages, so I chose not to employ any spam fighting tools on my blog in order to collect messages.
What happened?
Today, I officially became fed up on Spam, and I don’t even like canned meat. After a quick search for WordPress plugins, I chose to employ WP-SpamFree. It’s a back-end tool that causes no inconvenience to my readers (assuming you have javascript and cookies enabled) and is supposed to have virtually zero false positives. According to the literature, it is difficult for bots to deal with either javascript or cookies, so this tool uses both to keep auto-spam from hitting my blog comments. Supposedly I should now receive virtually no spammed comments. I look forward to letting you know if it works well.
What do I know about spam?
Quite a bit, actually. During my employment with a Web hosting company, I was referred to as the “Postini Queen.” We were a reseller of Postini services (which my current Web host, Hostmonster.com, also offers to its customers), and I learned everything Postini my mind could absorb over the course of a year and a half. I’ve seen more tricks used by spammers than I ever saw from my dad (previously known as The Great Austinini. He was great at card tricks.) Which is why I was a bit surprised that a couple of spammers are so good, I nearly thought a couple of their comments were real.
How do I determine spam versus non-spam?
First I look at the message. Many are easy to spot. But some say, “Great article, i hope i can know much information About it!” Ok, so maybe this guy isn’t a native English speaker. Maybe this comment is real. This takes another step. I look at the name and email address of the commenter. Hermes Handbags at some unpronounceable email address from gmail? I doubt that’s real. Then comes the comment that’s almost convincing, “Thanks for this very informative article.” The English is correct. It fits the subject of my blog (to inform). The name and email address look fairly believable. This time I pull out the big guns. I go to http://dnsgoodies.com and copy/paste the commenter’s IP address into the IP field and let the results judge the validity of my comment. The IP address belongs to a server that resides in some uknown city in Mexico? Spam? You got it.
So, why don’t I just employ a Captcha or a math equation? Because I find the Captchas difficult to use and, in general, annoying. The math equations are ok, but I wanted to give WP-SpamFree a try before taking further measures. I’ll keep you posted.
When a brand has a great product that I can’t live without, I consider it a KandiKreatives PR Winner. Strip away the advertising, the relationship building, the customer service – when you strip it all away, if you don’t have a great product, your customers are still on the open market. Here’s the trick – I have to know your product is out there to try it.
Growing up, I did not know the meaning of product loyalty. I couldn’t afford to understand the concept. Since my mom struggled to make ends meet, I made sure I had few needs and just used whatever she happened to buy – which changed each time she went to the store.
When I was on my own for the first time, I still could not afford product loyalty. Though I had discovered a few brands of makeup, soap or shampoo I liked, I could rarely afford to buy them with any consistency. I certainly did not get my hair cut with any consistency. I would go maybe twice a year and always to a different salon – anything from Ross the Boss to Wal-Mart (I know, I know.)
And then I met my husband.
The whole world of product loyalty suddenly opened up to me. Talk about a gender role reversal, my husband loves to shop. And he understands that paying more is not only worth it, but may actually save money in the long run because quality tends to last longer (ok, except for haircuts, but you just can’t put a price tag on feeling beautiful.)
Burt’s Bees
The first brand I became addicted to was Burt’s Bees products. As a redhead, I am a chapstick fiend, and I have found that Burt’s Bees really is the best. But my loyalty does not end with chapstick, I also use the Orange Essence Facial Wash and the Carrot Nutritive Day Cream. And when I used toner, I was an avid fan of the tomato-based toner. One time, when I had run out of toner, I couldn’t find the toner at any Burt’s Bees retailers, so I stopped by a “natural” women’s products boutique. Surely they would have it, right? When I asked the sales person if she had Burt’s Bees products, she let me know that they did not carry products that you could also purchase at a local hardware store. Understandable, I said, however, this particular product is not so easy to find. Then I asked her if she had anything comparable that I may want to try from her store. You’re gonna love this part. She actually told me that since she was unfamiliar with Burt’s Bees products, she wasn’t sure if she would have anything I would like, that I had beautiful skin so the products obviously worked well for me, and good luck. Talk about strengthening my loyalty to Burt’s Bees and any store that sells the products. Too bad I still couldn’t find the toner. So, after research on using toner, I decided to delete it from my daily regimen.
Natural Aveda Salon and Spa
I have also found a hairstylist at Natural Aveda Salon and Spa that I am 100 percent loyal to. Not only do I go only to him but I also go with somewhat regularity. Besides the fact that he makes my hair look fabulous (I would never suggest to him how to cut my hair, I just let him have free rein), he brings me good luck. The first time I went to him, my husband proposed two days later. When I needed to get my hair cut for the wedding (I had a short engagement), my husband suggested I go back to him because I knew he would do a good job. So, after my second visit, I was married. After a visit a little more than a year later, I got a long-awaited job interview, and then I found out I was pregnant.
Bare Escentuals
The third thing I am now faithful to is makeup. One night I came home from a girlie event and found my husband watching an infomercial for Bare Escentuals (did I mention reversed gender roles?) A few days later, my first starter kit arrived in the mail. The makeup is light on my face, better at hiding facial flaws than any concealer I’ve ever used, and has actually improved my complexion (and I never wash my face before bed.)
Fekkai Glossing
And the latest product I am shouting about from the rooftops is Fekkai Glossing shampoo, conditioner and glossing cream. I tried, I tried so hard to love the shampoo and conditioner from Aveda that my hair guy uses on my hair (I love the products when he washes my hair). But even though I used Aveda at home for nearly three years, my hair never felt salon fresh when I used it. I can’t remember exactly when, but I was at Bath and Body Works and was given a free sample of Fekkai Glossing shampoo and cream. I placed it in my shower planning to try it “someday,” and then forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago (and probably nine months after receiving the sample), I finally tried it. And for the first time, even though I am overdue for a haircut, my hair felt salon fresh. It was a humid day and I had zero frizz. I purchased the set: the shampoo, conditioner and cream. (They also offer a shine mist.) After using it for two weeks, I must say, though expensive, I have never been less frustrated over my hair. Thank you Frederic Fekkai.
PR Pros: The Next Step
To the PR pros out there, I must say, free samples still go a long way. And to companies in the health and beauty business, I want to recommend an idea that I used during my ninth grade civics class advertising campaign: include a travel size of your product with a full-size purchase. Better yet, include a sample or travel size of a complimentary product, like a sample conditioner with the shampoo purchase. In an era when people traveling by plane must take travel sizes on flights, what better way to build a little product loyalty?
What products do you love? How did you discover them? PR pros want to know.
So, the journey to a wider writing vocabulary begins. My first word of the day is (cue drum roll)
bedizen
\bih-DY-zuhn\ , transitive verb;
1.To dress or adorn in gaudy manner.
I love this word – it’s already got me thinking about my current favorite movie, The Blind Side, which I watched for the first time Sunday night … “I will not wear that gaudy orange!”
And now for my first sentence:
Sports fans unfamiliar with Vol-Nation probably think Vol fans bedizen themselves for football games.
What sentence have you thought of using bedizen?
Do you have a word you think I should learn for my Word of the Day expedition? Be sure the share it with me!
I haven’t celebrated a PR Winner of the Week in several, several weeks, but this story could not go unnoticed. In fact, if you had told me this brand would be one of my PR winners, well, I wouldn’t have predicted that. But, congratulations to McDonald’s in Oklahoma, owned by Tim Rich and his wife.![[del.icio.us]](http://www.kandikreatives.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
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