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Recently I’ve been thinking about the speed of PR. Public Relations is unique because in many ways it’s extremely fast-paced, but at the same time it can take a while to see traction, particularly on the client side.

To quote Detective Alonzo Harris (played by Denzel Washington) in the movie Training Day, “The sh**’s chess, it ain’t checkers!” Harris says this to rookie cop Jake Hoyt (played by Ethan Hawk) to emphasize and explain the amount of planning and work it took to rid Los Angeles of one of its most notorious drug dealers.

While Harris is one of the most nefarious dirty cops in movie history, this line can be an accurate description of gaining positive PR traction, particularly for smaller, start-up companies with a new concept or idea. This is especially true if your company is new to PR.

What can you do to avoid these newbie PR jitters and ensure your patience with your agency isn’t being wasted? Following are a few tips that will help you get the most out of your PR agency’s efforts.

First thing, communicate effectively both internally and with your agency. This is the best way to get the most PR bang for your buck. Ensure there is a clear chain of command within your team and clearly communicate this process to your agency. If communication isn’t clear on both sides of the equation bad things can, and often times do, happen.

Next up, make sure there’s a high level of accountability both with your agency AND your internal team. Make sure deadlines are met and quality work is being produced from everyone involved in your company’s PR efforts.

Last thing, make yourself available to participate in editorial opportunities. If an editor wants to talk to your company have people designated and available. No matter how small the publication is it’s good to have your name out there. Most times things start small; very few companies have their first media hit appear on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Rome wasn’t built in a day.  

As a client, the most important thing to remember is there are many PR moves being orchestrated behind the scenes. Also, remember that patience is key. If your agency is working hard and you’re giving them the support they need the media hits will come.      

If I told you “I got to get back in shape.  Got to go lift weights,” you would think I was going to the gym to work out.  If I said I was chased you might ask by who or where.  If I said I had been burned you may express sympathy and ask me if it hurt.

If I said, “That babbo has a parakeet down in Pepsi Cola,” would you think I was thirsty and waned an ice cold Pepsi?

What if I asked you what the vig is?  Or told you what the nut was?

The mafia fascinates me. I love reading about it and how the FBI has been fighting the mob over the last couple decades.  My favorite story is about FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone, aka, Donnie Brasco.  The character of Donnie Brasco was made famous first by a book about Pistone’s undercover work and then by a movie featuring Johnny Depp as Donnie Brasco.

Pistone spent six years undercover living with and associating with the mafia.  He gathered intelligence and evidence that helped the FBI send more than 100 gangsters to prison.

In one of Pistone’s books he explains what wiseguys say and what they mean.

When a wiseguy says, “I got to get back in shape.  Got to go lift weights.” It mans he’s going to prison.  When he says,  “That babbo has a parakeet down in Pepsi Cola,” he means some useless underling has a mistress down in Pensacola.  If a mafia member is chased it means he’s been banished from the mafia.  If he’s been burned he’s been wacked (killed).

A “Vig” or Vigorish refers to the interest accrued on mob loans.  If a mobster references the nut he’s talking about the bottom line or gross profit.

I bring this up because each industry has its own set of words that mean something to those involved in that industry but may mean nothing or something totally different outside the context of their work environment.

When we meet with our clients and do what we call media training, we explain to them the importance of speaking and using terms or words that are familiar to all people and not just a particular industry.  We encourage them to refrain from using industry jargon, catch phrases or terminology that somebody outside the industry is not going to understand.  Keep it as simple as possible and don’t expect or assume that everybody knows exactly what some of these words mean.

Fughedaboutit!  By eliminating these types of instances, you’ll ensure that people understand what you’re telling them and eliminate any chances of being misunderstood or not understood at all.

You may have noticed your friends talking about organ donation on Facebook in the the last week.

A new Facebook initiative started on May 1, and people immediately had the option to add to their timeline their story about when they became an organ donor and why. Organ donor registries became easily accessible to millions of Facebook users.

This is all great news, considering these statistics:  More than 114,000 people in the United States are waiting for heart, kidney, or liver transplants. An average of 18 people a day will die waiting for organs to become available.

I’ve always cared about organ donation. In high school, I organized an awareness drive and in college several of my roommate’s organs were donated after he was killed in a tragic accident. I’ve seen firsthand the life-saving power of organ donation, but haven’t done much lately to raise awareness. But last week when my friend posted about organ donation on Facebook, I did the same.  My hope was that I could influence my network to join the registry.

So why did Facebook do this? Why now? According to Facebook’s news release, it’s all about friends:

“Facebook’s mission is simple: to make the world more open and connected. But the Facebook community has also shown us that simply through sharing and connecting, the world gets smaller and better. Even one individual can have an outsized impact on the challenges facing another, and on the world. At Facebook, we call that the power of friends.”

The power of friends? Sounds a bit cheesy. Is this initiative really an act of goodwill or simply a smart PR move?

Frankly, to me it doesn’t really matter. The important point is that Facebook is using its massive network to accomplish good, and hopefully its millions of users will take action.

We all have some level of online influence. If you’re a business owner, you certainly have some clout online that you can leverage to accomplish good. Align yourself with worthwhile causes and take action to support them. Your efforts can be as small as raising awareness via your already-established social media channels. Being a good corporate citizen is important, and your customers and potential customers will appreciate your efforts and take action themselves. After all, peer pressure isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

By the way, if you want to join me in sharing your organ donor status on Facebook, click here for instructions.

I recently attended a meeting where we started the meeting by playing a game called "Remembering the Future." The objective of the game was to think ahead one year into the future, and ask ourselves "We had an incredibly successful year in our organization. What were some of the highlights that we accomplished over the last year?" We had to make our statements with verbiage such as:

•    "I remember when we……"
•    "I think we had our biggest impact when we…."
•    "I couldn't believe the response we had when we…."
•    "I really enjoyed…."

Though the concept of the game is easy enough, the results were fascinating, as we discussed a myriad of things that we had done. Some were entertaining, like "I really enjoyed the three day offsite meeting we had in Hawaii." Others were accomplishments from an individual, or as a group. The most fascinating aspect of it was that it brought out a lot of ideas that expanded our thinking and our possibilities of how we envisioned a successful year with regards to a specific project.

This game is like a focused brainstorming, without using the 'brainstorming' word. I've been through a number of lackluster brainstorming activities that weren't lead correctly, where ideas were stifled due to judgmental comments, etc. (the antithesis of the value of brainstorming).  In this game exercise, there was none of that, because we talked like it had already happened, and it's more difficult to pass judgement on something that already happened, than on a new idea.

I've found myself using this game in many aspects of personal and professional life now. Here are a few examples:

   * Business strategy planning at the beginning of the year
   * Starting a new marketing/PR campaign
   * Defining a new partnership
   * Creating personal goals & New Years resolutions

During the game, make sure somebody is scribing the ideas, or better yet, record the event. When the game is done, search for nuggets that can be acted upon and planned around. This becomes a fundamental starting point to the strategic planning for the year, or whatever time period is chosen.

The idea from this game came from http://innovationgames.com/, where there are a number of innovative approaches to having fun while solving problems or planning.

Life isn't all about work, but when you can mix work and play together, it's amazing how fun planning for the future can be.