January 4, 2012 by Annette Frahm
I just read a great article in LinkedIn Today: “11 New Year’s resolutions for PR and marketing professionals.” I printed it out and intend to hang it above by desk. It’s worth remembering for anyone who writes, markets or does PR as part of your job.
Here are the 11 tips. You can find more details in the article.
- Resolve to be a better writer–and more succinct.
- Resolve to think outside the confines of “traditional” PR.
- Resolve to know your audience. What are they interested in?
- Resolve to be a storyteller. Tell readers how it will affect their lives.
- Resolve to speak measurement upfront. Can you measure your impact?
- Resolve to be SEO friendly.
- Resolve to be more visual. Use multimedia.
- Resolve to stay ahead of the game. Don’t just get wrapped up in fighting fires.
- Resolve to slow it down and clean up your act. No excuse for being sloppy.
- Resolve to clear your head. Take a five-minute break.
- Resolve to give good counsel. Tell your boss or client what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
Posted in Communications, Public relations, Storytelling | Tagged New Year's resolutions | Leave a Comment »
November 5, 2011 by Annette Frahm
This week marks the six-month anniversary of my bike accident. If you’ve read my blog about the accident, you know that I had a severe concussion and was told to rest my brain so it could heal.
Now I’m mostly better. I would say my brain is 95% healed.
The last 5% I can best describe as my brain feeling full, as if it’s a smaller bucket. If I pile on the mentally taxing activities, I need to back off and rest. The good news is that a little rest does wonders.
It turns out I’m not alone in the overload problem. Maybe it has nothing to do with my head injury.
Most of us get inundated with information every day. How many emails did you read yesterday? What did you read, see on TV or hear on the radio today? What conversations did you have? You get it. Continue Reading »
Posted in Brain science, Communications, Informational overload | Tagged Decision-making, Information overload | Leave a Comment »
June 29, 2011 by Annette Frahm
The last thing I remember is cresting the hill on my bicycle.
The next thing I remember is waking up in the ambulance. The 20 or 30 minutes in between are gone, irretrievable. Even interviewing the first responders and visiting the scene of the accident did nothing to jog my memory.
Maybe it’s a good thing. I don’t remember how much it must have hurt to hit the pavement.
The doctor said my concussion was considered severe because I both had amnesia and lost consciousness. He told me to rest my brain so it could heal. Nothing taxing. Watch TV and read easy books.
At first I was capable of brief bursts of brilliance, followed by light-headedness and a low-pitched humming in my head. As time went on, I could function at my normal level for longer periods of time. But then I had to go lie down. Continue Reading »
Posted in Communications, Green marketing, Hazardous products | Tagged concussion, homer simpson, Life lessons, the thinker | 2 Comments »
April 13, 2011 by Annette Frahm
What if you could win a prize for safe driving? Would it encourage you to drive more slowly? The answer, an experiment in Sweden found, is yes.
The system uses a camera that takes a picture of every vehicle driving by. If the car is going too fast, the driver receives a speeding ticket. If the car is going at or below the speed limit, the driver is entered into a lottery to win part of the fines from the speeding drivers.
The experiment reduced the average speed of cars driving through a school zone from 32 km per hour to 25 km per hour, according to an article in Drive.
I first heard about this experiment on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Host Liane Hansen was talking with Gabe Zichermann, co-author of the book Game-Based Marketing and chairman of the Gamification Summit.
The Swedish experiment used rewards to change behavior. “And that positive incentive to create better behavior,” Zichermann says, “is a core tenet of games.” Continue Reading »
Posted in Access, Behavior change, Environmental behavior, Game, Game-based marketing, Gamification, Green communications, Green marketing, Power, Rewards, Status, Stuff | Tagged access, camera, Gabe Zichermann, game-based marketing, games, points, power, rewards, SAPS, speeding, status, stuff | 1 Comment »
February 9, 2011 by Annette Frahm
Americans are fat. In fact, 72 Americans—a third of the population—are not just fat, but obese.
Big portions are a big reason. I heard recently that Starbucks plans to offer a gigantic 31-ounce “Trenta” iced drink. The Trenta is bigger than the capacity of the average stomach. Twenty years ago, take-away coffee came in a seven-ounce cup.
Drinks, snacks and meals have all gotten bigger over time. As portion sizes increase, people get fatter.
How do we get people to eat smaller portions? One way is to affect their perceptions. Continue Reading »
Posted in Behavior change, Buying green, Communications, Green communications, Green marketing, Green products, Hazardous products, Overeating | Tagged Buying green, Dan Ariely, Fat, Green products, Portion size, Small plate movement | Leave a Comment »
January 5, 2011 by Annette Frahm
Kasha & Scooter lounging with Annette
At the beginning of January, we often consider how to change the way we live. This year, I’m going to use my cats as role models.
The ancient Egyptians worshiped cats. I suppose in some ways I follow their lead. My husband and I have two cats, and they have the upper hand in our house. We get lots of pleasure and affection from them, and they’ve also taught us some valuable things about how to live life. Here are nine life lessons I’ve learned from my cats.
1. Be appreciative. Purr when someone does something nice for you.
It’s much more fun to pet a cat when it purrs in response. Purring is a cat’s way of showing thanks and appreciation.
People like to be appreciated—whether that’s giving a smile and a thank you to the person who holds the door for you, or giving kudos to your spouse for cooking a nice dinner or even just taking out the trash. Every day, think of a way to let someone know you appreciate something they’ve done for you.
2. Focus on a single task.
Cats are great at focusing their attention on one thing at a time. Maybe it’s the bird on the other side of the window or the spider crawling up the woodwork. A cat couldn’t catch a mouse if it was multi-tasking. You will be more successful if you quiet your mind and only do one thing at a time. Continue Reading »
Posted in Cats, Humor, Life lessons | Tagged Cats, Life lessons | 4 Comments »
December 23, 2010 by Annette Frahm
The other day I took a class called “Freeing the Wild Writer!” I’m always looking for ways to keep my creative juices flowing, and thought it sounded like fun. It turned out to be great fun–and mind-expanding.
The class involved exercises where someone drew the beginning phrase of a sentence from a bowl. We all wrote for five minutes, using the phrase as our starting point. Then we read our pieces out loud to each other. It was amazing how the same phrase took us in so many different directions.
The last exercise started with “Right on time . . .” Here’s what I wrote. My fellow students cracked up. I hope you enjoy it too.
Right on time . . . that is something people rarely say about me. I am usually a few minutes late wherever I go.
The habit drives my husband crazy. He’s German, and an engineer. Both of those things mean he believes in order. “Ordnung muss sein” (German for “Order must prevail”) is the German national anthem, according to him. Continue Reading »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged creative writing, late, Prompt | Leave a Comment »
December 10, 2010 by Annette Frahm
Yesterday I talked about how charities use our desire for internal consistency when asking us for donations.
Another tool of the trade is anchoring. Charities keep track of how much you gave them in the past, and they use that as a starting point. If you gave them $50 last year, they might suggest a donation of $75 or $100. If you gave them $200 last year, they might start with $250.
These starting points, called anchors, are used to help us make decisions. We start from a number or a piece of information. In this case, the anchor is our past history of giving to the organization.
Charities might also use a totally different anchoring method. They might start with a very large figure, perhaps “We hope you would consider a gift of $1,000.” When one suggested that amount to me, I laughed out loud. (Perhaps you’re richer than me.) Starting with a high anchor may make smaller amounts seem less unreasonable. Continue Reading »
Posted in Anchoring, Behavior change, Charity donations, Communications | Tagged Anchoring, Charity donations, Starbucks | Leave a Comment »
December 9, 2010 by Annette Frahm
This time of year, my mailbox fills with letters from charities asking for year-end donations. Some of them call me instead. They often start the call with: “First I’d like to thank you for your past support . . .”
They use this phrase because it works. If they remind me that I have given them money in the past, I may be more likely to listen instead of hanging up.
“Thank you for your past support” works because we want to be internally consistent. We don’t want our behavior or ideas to conflict; it makes us uncomfortable. This is known as cognitive dissonance. We are likely to change an attitude, belief or action in order to be consistent again. Continue Reading »
Posted in Charity donations, Cognitive dissonance, Communications, Consistency, Marketing, Prediction | Tagged Charity donations, Consistency, Predicting behavior | 1 Comment »
October 21, 2010 by Annette Frahm
The Wall Street Journal ran an article the other day about how to get people to adopt green behaviors. The headline said, “It isn’t financial incentives. It isn’t more information. It’s guilt.”
The article later called it peer pressure, which I think is more accurate than guilt. We don’t know which emotions are at play when people want to be like others. Often they’re not even aware of others’ influence. They may even deny others’ influence.
They just do something because other people are doing it. They’re acting like sheep. Read more>
Posted in Behavior change, Communications, Green communications, Marketing, Social norms, Social proof, Uncategorized | Tagged Green consumer behavior, Street musician, Wall Street Journal, Water bottles | 2 Comments »
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