A distinguished professional communicator from a previous affiliation shared an insightful “formula” for planning and evaluating communications campaigns: “Success was… .” “Success was…” is a prompt. It calls on us to actively envision the future and project the desired outcome of communications initiatives in specific terms before they’re undertaken. It compels the use of informed …

After a phone call a couple of weeks ago from a dentist friend (“an endodontist, to be clear,” he says), I got to thinking how hard it would be to publicize his line of work. He needs no help in gaining clients. This guy performs 25 root canals a week, compared to the general dentist …

Read all about it: Neither lunch nor the news is free. Starting Monday, October 22nd, the Globe and Mail will erect an online paywall. Visitors will have monthly access to 10 free stories; for more, they’ll need a subscription. The Post Newspapers will do much the same. Both follow the New York Times whose revenue-generating …

This year, we’ve encountered Isaac, Joyce, Kirk and Leslie. Next year, we may hear the roar of Andrea, Barry, Chantal and Dorian (and more). Perhaps professional communicators concerned with issues and crisis management should take inspiration from the U.S. NOAA practice of naming hurricanes. Maybe we should follow a similar tack and name serious organizational …

I am not going to lie to you. I cringe every time someone refers to me as a publicist. “Hey, I’m a communicator,” I always want to scream, but never do. “Do I crawl on my belly for a story? Do I grovel? Do I beg? Do I riddle my press releases with glaring grammar, …