Toluu : a shel of my former self

a shel of my former self

blogging at the intersection of communication and technology

When everyone has to have inputJanuary 7

I’ve been there. You’ve been there. You’ve been asked to execute a simple idea, but everyone from legal to branding has to make a change, as if failing to make a change somehow signifies that they’re not doing their jobs. When you’re living it, it’s frustrating, even gut-wrenching. When you see it like this, though, it’s funny. Tell me you didn’t laugh out loud.

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Hat tip to Jenny, The Shifted Librarian

Communication students need mentors; you can be oneJanuary 6

I was a lucky guy when I took my first corporate communications job.

I’d been a newspaper reporter for a couple years when I made the switch. In 1977, few universities offered degrees in communications. At my college, the journalism department offered a single class in PR. So when I made the jump from journalism to communications, I didn’t know much about it. Since I was going to be assistant editor of a weekly employee newspaper, I figured it was just journalism for a different audience.

Fortunately, two of the people to whom I reported became my mentors. The late Ken Estes, editor of the ArcoSpark, and Dave Orman, ARCO’s manager of employee communications, spent the time with me to help me grasp the world of organizational communications. In fact, I recall viewing them as mentors and not as bosses.

Today, universities do offer degrees in communication. Professional associations provide student memberships in student chapters. But there’s nothing like regular contact with an experienced professional who has taken an interest in you and your career. Unfortunately, there are far more students aproaching graduation than there are mentors to help guide them.

That imbalance led Allie Osmar to set up a site designed to

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #411: January 5, 2009January 5

Content summary: Marking four years of FIR on Jan 3; upcoming FIR Interview with Jack O’Dwyer; Israel/Gaza/social media follow-up: Steve Lubetkin podcast interview with Israeli consul in USA; Michael Netzley reports from Singapore; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; David Phillips reports from the shadow of Stonehenge; News That Fits: the 13 skills of the PR pro of the future, as phishing and hacking come to Twitter are they doing enough to help protect you?; Sallie Goetsch reports from the Podcast Asylum; listeners’ comments discussion; music from Maria Gaines; and more.

Get FIR:

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for January 5, 2009: A 68-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

PR skills of the futureJanuary 4

Ogilvy PR Worldwide produced this video for PRWeek’s “Next” conference, held in mid-November. Leaders of PR agencies talk about the skills of the PR counselor of the future. John Bell weighs in with his own 13 skills, including SEO, influencer identification, community management, conversation (not just messaging) and digital crisis management.

Starting the Fifth Year of the FIR PodcastsJanuary 3

The following, written by my podcast co-host Neville Hobson, is cross-posted from the For Immediate Release site:

Four years ago today – on January 3, 2005 – we published the first episode of a new podcast called “For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report.”

Describing ourselves as “Neville Hobson, ABC, and Shel Holtz, ABC, a pair of communication professionals who think they have something to say,” we set out to introduce something new into organizational communication by using a then-emerging tool such as podcasting to demonstrate how such a tool could work for communicators.

During these four years, we’ve grown FIR into a series of podcasts embracing interviews with interesting people,