We’ve created this mess ourselves.  We didn’t necessarily intentionally create the mess, but we created, and then fed into, the means that created the mess. 

Since World War II everything for the American consumer to consume needed to be bigger, brighter, faster, better, new and improved – sadly, this includes our need for sensationalism and celebrity status.  By now you all know my love of cars, so I’ll put it this way: everyone wants to be a Ferrari when a Chevy will do the same job.  Or, in Broadway terms: everyone wants to be a Spiderman or King Kong when a Hello, Dolly! is just as entertaining. 

What might start out as a good cause and a needed message will get a little attention, start to gain traction, makes some needed changes in a segment of society, but then as soon as the new/now/next cause or message comes along, attention wanes.  In order to get the spotlight back on the original good cause, supporters will often be forced to go to extremes.  They may knowingly, or subconsciously, make certain compromises along the way to keep the cameras focused on them.  And/or they may make unholy partnerships with groups just similar enough, but with a fringe element the original cause may not have wanted to be associated with.  All in the name of furthering attention on their original cause, which is now long forgotten.

Unfortunately, I can only recommend one solution.  And this may come as a shock from a publicist, but here it is – TURN IT OFF!  Turn off the news, turn off the TV, turn off social media.  Go for a walk, go for a bike ride, read a book, have a conversation with someone.  You have the power to tame the beast.  Simply don’t feed it and it will go away.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my Below Deck marathon. 

It seems like almost everyday another remake is announced.  It could be the reboot of a TV show, a new version of a past-hit movie, or the revival of a popular musical.  Every time another remake is announced around my house we always say, “Well, Hollywood/Broadway is dead.  There are no new ideas!” 

Then, a thought occurred to me over the weekend, am I a hypocrite?  By asking clients to repurpose book chapters, blog posts, keynotes, and other collateral for article topics, am I just asking for a remake?  Often, we’ll suggest a client’s first article be an ‘umbrella’ article summarizing their topic to introduce them to editors’ readers and give the editors a taste of the excellent content to come from this author.  Then, in future articles you can drill down deeper into the topic.  It’s not uncommon for a client’s fourth or fifth article to be based on one of the bullet points from a previous article. 

I always suggest to clients, “Why reinvent the wheel?”  Re-use, repurpose.  This builds frequency and repetition.  A book chapter makes a great blog post, a blog post makes a great article topic, and multiple articles put together make a great book!  A meeting planner or executive could see your blog and want more information so they buy your book and then find your article in their association journal and hire you for their next convention or corporate event. 

So, by preaching what the entertainment industry is practicing am I being a charlatan?  Do I have a double-standard?  There’s one major difference – I’m advocating remaking your own original content.  Hollywood and Broadway are re-using and re-doing other people’s creativity, they’re not putting in the time, effort and risk to develop their own. 

If it’s your idea, recycle it until the cows come home!  It’s yours, you created it, you took the time and risk to refine it.  Your content can and will have many lives. 

People are busy setting records for being the fastest to go the distance, or the quickest to accomplish something.  But, a story on GMA the other day about the longest married couple, (they’ve been married for 73 years!  Congratulations!) got me thinking about the pride in longevity.

Queen Elizabeth is already Britain’s longest reigning monarch, serving longer than Queen Victoria’s 63+ years on the throne, but now she’s zeroing in on the longest reigning monarch in known history, with only four years to go to out-serve King Louis XIV of France’s 72 years. 

Then there’s one of my favorites:  Kelsey Grammar ending the run of Frasier one season after he’d portrayed Dr. Frasier Crane for one year longer than James Arness portrayed Marshal Matt Dillion on Gunsmoke. 

PR/PR Public Relations has the 20-year mark in the rear-view mirror.  We were founded in the late ‘90s, and I’m proud to say still going strong.  Through terrorist attacks, great recessions, pandemics, and other factors affecting the speaking industry, we continue to get our speaker, consultant, and author clients’ content positioned in front of their target market.

All this being said, it also brings me back to something many human resource consultants ask, “Do you have an employee with five years’ experience, or one with one-year experience repeated five times?”  In other words:  longevity doesn’t mean much if you haven’t learned much. 

You must be willing to change, adapt, and move forward as you gain longevity.  The Queen certainly learned that lesson with her initial reaction to the tragic death of Lady Diana. 

Loving what you do helps.  Loving the people you do it with helps.  But if you start something hoping it never changes, chances are you won’t be in it for the long-haul.  There are many rewards for going the distance and sticking with your passion, you just have to stay around long enough to see them! 

With the #DemConvention last week and the #RNC2020 this week you’re going to be hearing a lot of claims.  Many of them true from their perspective, but some of them just not true no matter how you look at them.  This blog tries to stay non-political, so let’s look at some recent product claims that just aren’t true and what went wrong along the way, and what they’re doing to fix it.

Similar to bodycams and red-light traffic cameras, you can’t get away with a thing these days because cameras are everywhere, you also can’t get away from false product claims because consumer vigilance is everywhere. 

False claims come in many forms; from photo bleaching, to omitting information, to manipulation of measurements, to fillers and oversized packaging, but the worst of all that poses the greatest threat is the misleading health claims.

The “Snake Oil” salesman has been with us for hundreds of years, promising vim and vigor with a mere teaspoon of their elixir.  Scientifically, there are benefits to the placebo effect, but that’s more on a case-by-case basis when the outcome is not life threatening.  These days, when people are counting on certain products to save their life and/or protect them from getting ill in the first place, a false claim can prove to be more than a pain in the pocketbook/wallet. 

There are government agencies in place to protect consumers, particularly the Federal Trade Commission which watches over suppliers of vitamins and supplements, but many of these products are exempt from review so, as always, and in particular when your life depends on it, “Caveat Emptor.”

Even though Abraham Lincoln never said, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,” it still rings true!

Today is primary election day in Florida.  Where ever you are, you can find out when your state’s primary election date is here. 

I won’t deem to tell you whom to vote for.  That’s up to you, your conscience, and your morals.  What I will urge you towards is voting.  Vote early, vote by mail, vote in person, it doesn’t matter when or how you vote, just vote! 

Like I said, it doesn’t matter when or how you vote, but it does matter who you vote for – or rather who you don’t vote for.  Statistically, a vote for a third-party candidate is more beneficial to the candidate trailing in the polls.  A write-in vote does the same, as does not voting at all, just because your candidate of choice didn’t get the nomination or for any other reason.  All these actions take votes away from what might be your second choice, or your party’s actual nominee, and thus gives the other candidate the advantage. 

Now is not the time to be magnanimous.  Mid-terms are a good time to vote for third-party candidates or write-ins, if they do get elected, they can help build coalitions in order to gain a majority for a particular party. 

Is it also important to vote in local elections.  Many current Congresspeople and Senators started at School Boards and City Councils.  That was the time to determine if you like their policies and positions and stop or encourage them.  Once they move up to state or national legislators, it is much harder to raise the awareness to vote them out.  Do your research now, and pay attention to what they say and do between elections.

Do you know what you can do for your country?  You can VOTE!