Writing

Three Qualities Necessary To Be A PR Specialist

Garth Beyer

Organization. If you’re reading this and your desk isn’t organized, PR may not be for you.

Writing. If you haven’t written a press release, an essay, a research paper, a news article, a blog, a magazine article, a mobile article, an email, a text message, a script, a dialogue, a monologue, a poem, and any other writing products, then PR may not be for you.

You must know how to write in various forms for various audiences using various mediums.

Selling. Everything is sales. Particular to PR, you are selling your story. You better get used to it. Learn sales.

 

Stay Positive & More Qualities To Come, I’m Sure

The Writer’s Kiss

Garth Beyer

If you’re a writer, be a writer.

If you’re an editor, be an editor.

They are two different lifestyles and they have a peculiar way of, not entwining, but meeting each other.

Writing is like kissing a girl, you (the guy, the writer) go 90% of the way. You have the ideas, you put words to paper, you apply the foundation and build the structure of a story. The girl goes the other 10% of the way. She does the editing, the grammar, the mechanics.

You meet, you kiss,, you both leave each others lips stronger, more assured, more confident in it working out. The perfect kiss. The perfect writing.

On What To Write About

Garth Beyer

Writer, novelist, journalist, whatever your title, the question always comes up, what should I write on?

For many, we have plenty of ideas to keep us occupied. However, that doesn’t always mean that our readers want the same things that we want to write about.

There is a simple solution.

I’ve recently interviewed Doug Moe, long time columnist for the Wis. State Journal. When asked about how he decides what to write on, he mentioned that he gets a lot of his ideas from his own history. Things happen to connect for him. On the other hand, he also gets a lot of suggestions from readers, friends, and people looking to be profiled.

Doug elegantly entwines what he wants to write about and what other people want him to write about, all the while making it so that each piece is loved and felt by the people of Madison.

When you can’t come up with ideas for what to write on, or your ideas aren’t appealing to your audience, don’t quit, don’t give up, don’t put down the pen. Get people to suggest stories for you and run with them like you’ve been handed a batton in the Olympics.

Every idea for your audience is a treasure, or at least it will be viewed as one when you’re done writing about it.

PR Specialists Three Choices For Writing

Garth Beyer

1. Persuade: Getting them to side with your idea.

2. Entertain: Taking a fun idea and making them part of it.

3. Be clever: Blowing their minds with genius.

You can bet which one earns you the most recognition and is my personal favorite.

Why We Read: A Pyramid of Life (Information)

Garth Beyer

One reads to argue; grammatically, mechanically, ideologically. If we can’t argue in one or more of these ways, we pick one piece of a whole that we deem incomplete.

The description and detail does not fulfill our expectations. Not that we had them to begin with, but since we can’t argue one of the three ways posed above, we must find some flaw. Thus, we raise our expectations for information until we can deliver that flaw ourselves.

In other words, in order to argue one thing, we must collect one or more others writings that connect with our own thoughts of why the original piece of work is inadequate.

Simplified: We dig in our minds, as well as research, until we can one-up the concept we are arguing.

I read an article on Brain Pickings today that shared parts of Vannevar Bush’s essay’s. Maria Popova, whom I adore but must argue with, stated the following in response to one of the essay’s excerpts. In addition, she had provided this visual.

“To that end, I often think about the architecture of knowledge as a pyramid of sorts — at the base of it, there is all the information available to us; from it, we can generate some form of insight, which we then consolidate into knowledge; at our most optimal, at the top of the pyramid, we’re then able to glean from that knowledge some sort of wisdom about the world, and our place in it, and what matters in it and why.”

I love pyramids, more specifically though, I love BIG pyramids. Pyramids that contain everything available, everything manageable, everything attainable to make it as large and strong as Goliath. Of course, without the idea that a small pebble or a tap of the foot on it would knock it down.

If you haven’t gathered what I’m pointing out here, it is that this pyramid is incomplete. It’s missing a vital piece of human development and understanding. It’s missing, action. See for yourself.

By action, I clearly mean experience.  You can gather all the information possible, develop as much insight as you can, acquire any related knowledge on that subject from others, but you still won’t have wisdom. Simply because wisdom can only be shared through remarkable stories, and remarkable stories only come from experience.

I have added to this pyramid, I have argued against Bush and Popova, and I have strengthened an understanding of such a broad concept. Why we read, then, comes down to the need for progression, the creation of informational dynamics, and the simple fact that there is always room for improvement.

 

Stay Positive & What Do You Have Too Add

Garth E. Beyer

10 Lessons About PR You Won’t Learn In School

Garth Beyer

Last night I was honored to listen to John Mose, Senior Vice-President of Public Relations at Cramer-Krasselt in Milwaukee, give a presentation to PRSSA Madison Chapter. The next few posts will be highlights of the presentation with my own commentary for an added texture.

1. Writing is important. Really.

You can land a position by presenting writing examples. You can get promoted by writing up proposals. You can get honored by writing the best press releases. You can be respected for writing media pitches. You can have the advantage of knowing what writers want to write about by being one yourself. Writing is everything.

2. Clients care about details.

You can skip the details when you are writing a plan out because you know them. You can skip the details when you pitch to your boss because your boss knows that you know them. You can’t skip the details when you pitch to your client because regardless of any title or background you have, your client won’t care. They want the details.

3. Understand and consume media. Read!

If you’re like me, reading all the articles in a newspaper is hard. The idea of opening a magazine to have my eyes blasted with absurd and uninformative ads repulses me. One word: literature. Other than that, I love reading articles online, but my eyes can only stand looking at the screen for so long. I’ve written about adaptation and this is when you have to get used to consuming all that you can. I’m making progress, you can too/need to.

4. At an agency, you are the product on shelf.

“Companies don’t cut the product that makes money.” – John Mose

5. PR can’t solve everything.

I’m leaving this up for debate. I have yet to meet a PR Professional other than John to say this. PR Specialists – being one myself – live by the adage If there is a will, there is a way.

6. Better to be fast than perfect.

My spin off of this that I have tweeted a few times, and rarely do I ever tweet something twice, is Be first, but be right first.

7. Be ready to sell some aluminum siding.

Similar to the next lesson; you never know what you may have to sell.

8. Know difference between a good-looking horse trough and an ugly one. You have to go out and be, do, or buy some crazy things.

You never know what you may have to do.

9. It’s okay to have non-traditional experience if you can make it interesting.

Took a year off? No problem, make the reason why fascinate me. Spent that last six years working a job that has no respective value? No problem, find and share what value it did hold. Every topic that you believe will work against you on your pursuit of becoming a PR Specialist, find how to make it interesting.

10. Study something else.

It’s time to confess something to you.

Everything you have read so far on this blog has come from experience, self-learning, or books and classes that are not directed at PR. I have to say that any and all future posts will be of the same context.

John advocates that you study something else, something you are passionate about, because the real world is the education center for PR. I couldn’t agree more.

(HT to John Mose)

Women Writers

Garth Beyer

truly know what they are doing. In light of my Women in Literature class I am taking and my rediscovery of a particular page in Keri Smith’s Living Out Loud, I’d like to share Keri’s 10 characteristics of women writers.

Oh yea, and don’t make fun of me for having the book. I had no clue it was created primarily for women when I got it!

 

1. A passion for nature.

2. A connection with something greater than themselves.

3. A connection with childhood memories.

4. A connection to other artists, writers, and creators,

5. A sharing of ideas and inspiration: creative gatherings, dinners, support groups, café meetings, letter writing, afternoon teas.

6. A need for, and confidence in, solitude.

7. A capacity for self-motivation: inspiring walks, travel, learning new skills, reading, cooking, exploring.

8. An experience of pain, and the triumph of moving beyond it to create a well of strength.

9. A gift of mindfulness and an ability to see magic in the ordinary.

10. An experience of gratefulness and compassion for all the good things and people in their lives.

 

But then again, I wouldn’t have been able to share this with you if I hadn’t.

 

Stay Positive & Having Passion Is Always More Beautiful Than Makeup

Garth E. Beyer