Archive for: Services

Being invited to host the White House Correspondents Association Dinner seems like a great honor, but Jay Leno may tell you it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

While it’s become customary for the president and vice president to attend the WHCAD, it looks like Tonight Show host Jay Leno got a run for his money, following what critics claim was a slam dunk performance by President Obama.

When news broke this week that a housing developer was buying the land where the famous HOLLYWOOD sign in Los Angeles stands, top names in the entertainment industry went on a rescue mission.

As a native of a Los Angeles suburb, I’m deeply familiar with the sign that punctuates the Chapparral Hollywood hillsides.   It’s certainly not a work of art; but it is a landmark.

Not many people probably know that the original sign – ironically an advertisement for a housing development – read Hollywoodland.  Dedicated in July 1923, the first letters were each 30 feet wide, 50 feet tall, and studded with 4000 light bulbs.  The developers only intended for the sign to be temporary, but the rise of American cinema in Los Angeles helped turn this advertisement into an attraction.

It didn’t take long before the sign began to be the source of trouble. Suicides, car accidents, vandalism – HOLLYWOOD had it all.   So in the late 1970s several industry moguls – including rocker Alice Cooper and Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner –replaced the deteriorating sign with something more permanent.

So it’s no surprise that so many movie tycoons rushed to rescue the sign again this week. (Hugh Hefner provided nearly $1 million himself.) In many ways, the HOLLYWOOD sign reflects America’s zeitgeist – both past and present: promise land, hope, opportunity, fame, and wealth.  As it turns out, saving HOLLYWOOD is about a whole lot more than saving a sign.

Making people laugh seems like an easy way to break the ice, but using humor in a speech is not for everyone – and it can certainly be a challenge to write. Perhaps that’s why speech-writing guide Joan Detz devotes an entire chapter to humor in her famous book How to Write and Give a Speech.

A cautionary tale: Just this week National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones began a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy with a somewhat off-color joke. His “funny anecdote” that he used to start the speech is now all over the Internet, raising concerns that he relied on anti-Semitic stereotypes for a laugh. Read

No matter how you slice it, Americans today are down on government. New research from the Pew Research Center shows that “by almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days.”

Compared to the Kennedy-Johnson years, when public trust in government reached nearly 80 percent, today that number has dropped below the 25 percent mark.  Increasingly, Americans claim to want to curtail government growth and limit its power.

While big-picture economic and political explanations abound, one researcher at Claremont Graduate University believes there may be a biological component, as well. Professor Paul Zak recently told NPR that the chemical oxytocin administered by the brain allows us to determine whom to trust.  His research has demonstrated that by increasing the amount of oxytocin an individual receives, the more trusting he or she becomes.

So, as Zak told NPR, he began to wonder, “How much does this scale up?” To what extent could biology – or, oxytocin – affect the public’s trust in government?  As it turns out, people who received more oxytocin did report trusting other people more and those same individuals also claimed to trust their government more.

But, perhaps more telling, is that trust in government usually decreases during periods of economic hardship – that’s when the public is generally exposed to prolonged periods of stress.   And stress, Zak says, is toxic to oxytocin. Stress inhibits the release of oxytocin, which therefore decreases public trust.

So while Republicans and Democrats will both try to explain this recent rebuff of Uncle Sam, perhaps one of the best explanations doesn’t bear any partisan weight at all.

In observation of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday (13 April 1743) it seems appropriate to look back at one of the most influential and important pieces of communication in history: The Declaration of Independence.

Scholars acknowledge that while The Declaration of Independence was “the great political document of the American Enlightenment,” it was not the most original.  Ideas of liberty and individual rights were commonly talked about in republican circles.  What was unique about The Declaration was the way it fused Enlightenment ideas of rational truths with republican principles of liberty:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

As Jefferson described the document, it was “an expression of the American mind.”

Some see being invited to speak before a large audience as a great honor. But being invited to speak before a large audience after dinner can be a challenge.

It reminds me of a story I once heard:

During the time of the Romans, a crowd came looking for an old hermit.  They brought him to the Colosseum in Rome where he was met in the middle of the arena by a pack of lions.  Surrounded by ferocious – and very hungry – lions, the old man slowly approached the leader of the pack and whispered something in his ear . . .after which, the lions ran frantically out of the arena and back to their cages.

The audience, which had been waiting in anticipation for the man to be eaten by the lions, mumbled and moved anxiously in their seats – they couldn’t believe what they had just seen. Finally, the head of the legion asked the old man, “What did you say to the lion?”

The man just smiled and said, “I told him that after dinner come the speeches!”

In the world of political consulting, most people talk about their experience working for political campaigns, on Capitol Hill, or on K Street.

Add to that list: Applying to pre-school.

Like lots of cities these days, parents can choose to start sending their children to “school” as early as 18-months. (Good framing by the way!) My older daughter is approaching 3, and this past fall I started the “process” of applying to pre-school.

And a process it is. Parent visits, lengthy applications, fees, play dates, and the spring delivery of – yes! – thick and thin envelopes.

After a lot of hard work my husband and I were pleased that our daughter was accepted to her (I mean, our) first choice.  And while I suspect it was largely fortuitous – I can’t imagine any of the applicants were unfit for finger painting and circle time – I think it’s fair to say her acceptance had something to do with my work in communications.  Or, if it didn’t, I certainly learned a lot about good communications from the process.

The fact is pre-schools are inundated with applications from eager parents. But they can’t take all of them, and short of a boxing ring, it might actually come down to your message.  How are you going to make your toddler stand out? What’s going to make your application different than the next?

It isn’t health care legislation or tax reform, but a pre-school application is a lot like a speech or op-ed. The first step is determining what you want to say.  And sometimes – like when it’s your child – there are many, many points to be made. (I know I could go on for pages about all my daughter’s wonderful traits. But let’s be honest, so could all the parents.)  It’s important to choose one or two points that really capture your message, or child.

This is where the age-old adage “show don’t tell” came in very handy.  Instead of listing all our daughter’s wonderful qualities, we tried to show her to them. We wrote about the things that interest her, what she enjoys doing, what activities she’s engaged in, what questions she asks, who her friends are – in short we gave them a portrait of her personality, not a litany of her best tricks.

And like a speech, it’s important to draw your audience in right away.  A good speaker might start with something personal – a story, a joke – and the same is necessary with an application.  So instead of the stale, typical head shot  most people attach to their applications, we sent in a picture of our daughter lying in the middle of a pile of leaves with a smile on her face a mile wide – who wouldn’t want to read the rest of the application after seeing that?

In communications, we have to think a lot about our audience, what we’re saying, and how we’re saying it.  And while a pre-school application isn’t exactly competing for airtime or column inches, it’s still necessary to find a creative way to make your voice heard.

And just remember, it’s only pre-school – you can always apply again next year!

Ever show up for a party on the wrong day?

Hard to imagine, considering invitations are sent by email, responded to by text message, and directions can be accessed by phone. Miscommunication about a date seems, well, a little out-of-date.

But, that’s exactly what happened to French peasants in the 16th century, and today we have April Fool’s Day to commemorate their foolishness.  While it’s hard to pinpoint the very first April Fool’s Day, experts look to 1582 as the origin.  That’s the year Pope Gregory XIII replaced the Julian calendar with the Gregorian calendar.  Since the Pope’s authority did not extend beyond the Papal States and the Catholic Church, it was up to individual countries to adopt this reformed calendar on their own time. Read