IABC Be Heard Weblog

Dogs barking right under your window as well as from miles away.

Jet engines even though they’ve long passed. I didn’t realize how many planes fly over our house.

Neighbors’ generators.

Neighbors baby talking to their pets.

Neighbors across the street laughing because they have power and we don’t. I’m sure that’s not why they’re laughing, but seems that way.

Chainsaws, blowers, weed eaters, mowers and other such macho equipment.

Sirens.

Birds singing as if nothing just happened.

A neighbor sneezing, like clockwork, same time every morning. This leads to a coughing attack no doubt from the cigarette being enjoyed on the back patio.

Leaves rustling.

Garbage trucks rolling down the street.

Squirrels returning to their trees, taunting the dogs and assessing damage to their buried treasures in our yard.

Blasting stereo of a car driving by.

Thump of the newspaper hitting the sidewalk. Monday’s paper. It’s Thursday. Guess they thought I wanted to relive what already happened. At least there’s another crossword puzzle for me to work on to occupy my time. By day’s end on Thursday I heard a few more thumps as the newspaper carrier delivered the complete set of missing papers from Saturday through Wednesday and finally, Thursday.

This post about IABC Houston’s involvement with the City of Houston to promote social media communications among neighborhoods has been interrupted by Hurricane Ike. Everything has been interrupted by Ike. It’s Wednesday or as the media say Day 4 of recovery and I’m still without power. I am writing this from my boss Tracy’s house who lives less than a mile from me. She has power. I’m thinking it’s because she lives next to a district court judge.

I was devastated to hear about Brennan’s being destroyed by fire and the folks injured in the blaze. We have canceled our September 25 luncheon that would have been held at Brennan’s and are encouraging those who had planned to attend (or even those who couldn’t make it) to donate that amount to the medical fund that has been established for the father and daughter who were caught in the fire. Watch the Web site and Insider newsletter for more information on how to do that. We are searching for a new venue to our luncheons and hope to have news of that soon.

We will also reschedule other events we had planned this week–new member’s breakfast and networking happy hour–to sometime in October.

It will be good to get back into a regular routine. I know that will take longer for some of us than others. And I wish everyone the best. Until the next post, take care.

Ed Schipul concluded his social media workshop on August 28 with a list of five things we should all do to plug into the social media world. They are:

1. Read blogs (find some on your topics of interest at www.technorati.com).

2. Set up an RSS Feed Reader (www.google.com/reader) to keep up with your favorite Web sites.

3. Join Facebook (www.facebook.com).

4. Join Flickr (www.flickr.com).

5. Track the buzz about you (www.google.com/alerts).

All good advice. My first to-do was to start a blog, which I have done here and have gotten into the habit of making time each week to write it. I have not, however, been reading blogs, other than my son’s for obvious reasons. I need to carve some extra time here each week to do this.

Once I found out what an RSS feeder is, it does seem like a good service to have. It lets Google scan your favorite Web sites for new information then alerts you to such. Again, more time to set aside to look at the reader.

I have joined Facebook, although that’s all I have done. We have an IABC/Houston group. I’ve gotten a flurry of emails from people wanting to be my friend. Good for the ego, I guess. I’m not quite sure what to do with Facebook now that I have joined. I will need some extra time each week to figure that out and use to my advantage.

I have not joined Flickr. Thought it was just for photographers, but again seems like a neat site and a good way to share photos. More time needed there to learn the benefits of this site.

Tracking the buzz with Google alerts sounds cool and I hope to do this soon. Just another matter of finding that extra time.

I think what I’ll do is make a point each week to do one of these items–actually mark it on my calendar to get in the habit of checking and using Facebook and Flickr and finding out what’s happening on other sites and blogs. If I keep doing this, then it will become habit and social media will just be a way of life.

Yes. But it’s not the tag line attendees at yesterday’s luncheon chose to describe our city. Coming in at 53%, Houston should be known as The City of Opportunity, which you may recall from last month’s luncheon was Mayor White’s favorite. Second place at 23% was Houston’s Hot. Lots of creative types still like this slogan from the 1990s. Third place at 13% was The Energy Capital. Yawn. It’s Worth It drew 10% and the final choice–The Space City–had no takers. That one’s really so yesterday.

The survey was part of Ed Schipul’s presentation on the Mobile Web. The idea was to conduct the survey and announce the results in real time to show how quickly communication can move these days. Only problem was we were having lunch at Brennan’s which hasn’t quite joined the Internet-for-everybody-everywhere world yet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. After all, the restaurant is supposed to be reminiscent of laid-back Southern comfort. And as long as they can keep producing desserts like yesterday’s pecan pie with vanilla Blue Bell, I’m okay with being Internetless. Brennan’s is getting there, though. The manager explained that they do have wireless Internet, but just for their business records purposes. They hope to have wireless public access in a couple of months.

So maybe Ed will seem less out of sorts when he speaks to our group again once Brennan’s joins the wireless age. Just kidding. Ed took it all in stride and promptly answered my thank-you-for-speaking email with three links to access the info he shared with us at the luncheon and afternoon workshop and a link I could use to email everyone who attended yesterday. Does the guy sleep?

Check out his info: Wrap-up Blog

Shel Holtz, is coming to Texas. An IABC international media guru, Shel is speaking at the IABC Austin monthly luncheon on Tuesday, Sept. 16. If you just can’t get enough of social media, and like a really entertaining speaker, then a drive to Austin to see Shel is worth it. Actually, a drive to Austin is worth it just about any time. Check out Austin’s site for details.

Emmy-winning journalist Bill Kurtis is now a grass-fed cattle entrepreneur. He will tell all about how he went from one manure-slinging business to another on the evening of Thursday, Aug. 28 at the 9th Annual Rice Alliance Kick-Off Celebration.  Registration begins at 5:30 p.m. at the McNair Hall at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Management. For more info on “A Very Special Evening with Bill Kurtis” contact Yanette Jimenez yanette@rice.edu.

Secrets of interactive marketing are about to be uncovered. The Houston Interactive Marketing Association will present its 2nd Annual Interactive Strategies Conference at an all-day event on Thursday, Sept. 18, at the Angelika in Bayou Place downtown. Registration starts at 8 a.m. Check out HiMA to find out more.

IABC Membership Month. If you’ve been sitting on the fence wondering whether to join this amazing group of communicators, now’s the time. The $40 application fee is waived for new and lapsed members. If you join as a corporate member (five or more per company) you get even more of a discount.

Or maybe you have a friend in the biz who you think could benefit from being a member. Bring him or her to one of our events in September to learn more about the Houston chapter. We have a networking happy hour planned for Sept. 18 and our monthly luncheon on Sept. 25. Check the Houston IABC Web site for details.

To learn more about what you get when you become a member of IABC, check out www.iabc.com/about/membership/ or contact our Member Services VP Robin Leeder at robin@griffincreative.com.

Rules from How to Create an Effective PowerPoint Presentation 101:

Large, readable type. One how-to source says nothing smaller than 24-point!

One idea per slide. Of course this could mean a slide presentation of 100 or more slides as one communicator on Ragan.com confessed to having to sit through. Another Ragan forum communicator shared how her CEO used a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation as a black-and-white brochure. Yikes! Another communicator quoted in IABC’s CW magazine reports of stuffing a five-page report onto one slide just to see if it’s possible. It is possible!

Minimal copy (if you can’t read it from the back of the room, it should not be on the slide). I attended a session at the international conference where the presenters kept apologizing, “I know you can’t read all of this, but…”

NO complicated charts, graphs, etc. Or how about the globe with all of your company’s locations plus a legend of all the little markers?!?!?

Okay. We all know what we’re supposed to do, but why don’t we do it? Because the software program makes it so easy to stick it on a slide and call it communication. It lets everyone in the company create their own show and no doubt having every page, chart and graph of their pet project up on the screen provides that comfort blanket as they make the presentation. What was supposed to be a program to help presenters highlight their talks has become the blob that ate the presentation as the audience stares at the screen trying to figure out what it says.

I offer this prayer–Please Lord, grant me the courage to explain to my client why putting an org chart that shows the company’s six worldwide divisions with manager mug shots and a picture of the globe in the background is not effective communication. And while you’re at it help me convince him that the company’s Web site links really don’t need to say, “Click here.” Amen.

For only $20, you can satisfy a UH communications student’s need for food and knowledge by paying his or her way to one of our monthly luncheon programs. For just a few bucks more, you could spring for a student to attend one of our workshops. It’s a great way to support a student’s journey to a degree in communications and bring recognition to your company at the same time.

That’s just one of the many and inexpensive ways to become an IABC/Houston sponsor.

Other opportunities include sponsoring monthly luncheons, networking happy hours, ESIG luncheons, YP events, Bronze Quill awards gala and special for this year is your chance to sponsor the Southern Region Conference to be hosted by Houston in the fall of 2009.

For more information on these opportunities to promote your company, contact our Sponsorship Director Tracy Torma at tracy@torma.com.

Task force follow-up–thanks to all of you who responded to my call to form a social media task force to meet Mayor White’s challenge to our chapter. [We Accept Your Challenge, Mr. Mayor 7/27/08] It was great to see so many of you as exicted about this opportunity as I am. Stay tuned to this blog for developments.

“My challenge to you as communicators is to help our citizens learn and embrace social media,” Mayor Bill White said at the end of his talk to a packed house at our monthly professional development luncheon. “Do you see yourself reading a newsletter in 10 years?” he asked. There was mixed reaction to this one. Many shook their heads “No” while some of the printing reps gave hopeful nods.

IABC is on track with getting our members up to speed on social media with seminars and workshops. The social media sessions at the international conference in New York in June were standing room only. Same for a session recently presented by IABC/Houston’s ESIG where guests had to be turned away. It will no doubt be the same for our August 28 luncheon and workshop to be led by social media guru Ed Schipul. I recommend you make reservations now.

One of our goals is for the Houston chapter to be the source for business and civic groups on matters of communication expertise. We want to create a supportive network of chapter members to serve as a resource to Houston audiences. So Mayor White, we accept your challenge. I will be meeting with the board in a couple of weeks and one agenda item will be to form a task force to work with a city representative and make a plan of action. If any of you are interested in being involved, let me hear from you through this blog or email me at theresa@torma.com.

A couple of other highlights from the mayor’s talk—

Houston doesn’t need a catchy slogan to promote it as a great city. We’ve tried. He mentioned “Houston’s Hot” and “Space City” but those don’t do the city justice. He’d like everyone to know that Houston is America’s City of Opportunity. Hmmm! You just may have created a new slogan.

When you tell people what you’re doing and why you’re doing it—that’s communication. Well said, Mr. White, well said.

Cougar Corner (from left) IABC/Houston student member Patrick Torma, UH Communications Professor Mike Emery, UH Board of Regents President Welcome Wilson Sr., and Richard Bonnin, assistant director of University Communications at UH. Mr. Wilson announced to the audience that fundraising is well under way for the newly named Jack Valenti School of Communications at UH. Valenti, who died last year at the age of 85, graduated from UH, was an advisor to LBJ and served for many years as the president of the Motion Picture Association of America. Mr. Wilson encouraged all the UH alums in the audience to participate in the capital campaign to renovate the communications school. (Photo by Danny Kamin.)

Mayor White quelled a standing ovation after being introduced by IABC/Houoston Board Member Steve Parker of Interface Consulting, one of the sponsors of the luncheon. The other sponsor was St. Luke's United Methodist Church, of which Mayor White is a member. IABC member April Canik, ABC, the communications director at the church, is shown at left applauding. (Photo by Danny Kamin.)