Keep it up
I am glad people are using the Cafe to share information and to offer information and assistance to members. It is heartwarming to read the offers of refuge and to hear about how members in the area are faring. Please continue to use this forum to share your thoughts.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:50 am
Just received in my in-box. This is very impressive work by marketingsherpa…and I see the IABC Cafe mentioned.
Dear MarketingSherpa Reader,
We’ve just launched MarketingSherpa’s Katrina Resources for
Marketing, Advertising & PR Professionals at:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=3068
(Open access)
You’ll find advice, hotlinks, and resources for:
- Email marketers
- Direct postal mail marketers
- Hospitality and travel industry pros
- Market researchers
- PR pros & business communicators
- Trade show professionals
- Online publishers
- Association marketers
…. please let us know if you have any additional resources
or hotlinks we should include. Yes, we’ll update this
resource list on an ongoing basis. Contact
feedback@marketingsherpa.com
Thanks for your help in this community effort,
Anne Holland, Publisher
Susan Clay, Research Librarian
…. and the whole team here at MarketingSherpa
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September 2nd, 2005 at 4:12 am
What a small world. I, too, received the MarketingSherpa note yesterday which inspired me to post the comment below on Shel Holtz’s blog. Robert Holland dropped me a private e-mail suggesting that I post it here as well.
>>Shel, regarding your observation that Charles, and undoubtedly others are, “without access to resources most of us take for granted,” IABC/PRSA could use their clout to arrange to make resources available to members to help them get back on their feet and functioning until things stabalize, at least for the self employeed.
Since I am assuming we are not talking about thousands of displaced members, how about:
- arranging with Dell/IBM/Gateway/Apple, etc. to provide loaner laptops.
- Likewise with Microsoft and other software vendors for tools the member needs.
- Verizon/Nextel/Cingular, etc. to provide free cell phones and service for 90-days (or a certain amount of free monthly airtime)
- Loaner printers from HP/Lexmark, etc.
- Discounted service at Kinkos
- Free/discounted service from ISPs to enable them to get on the Internet.
- Free/discounted office space in the area they are temporary settled in.
- Any other service PR/business communicators might need to become productive again.
IOW, airlift in an office and tools so they can get back to the business of earning a living and obtaining much needed income they will undoubtedly need in the near future.
I bet that if the request was made from IABC/PRSA the companies mentioned (plus others) would seriously consider it and could recognize the benefits to their reputations (beside it just being the nice thing to do) in helping a handful of folks in this manner.
You know the old saying, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” The worst that could happen is that the answer would be no. But over the years I’ve learned that it’s pretty amazing what you can achieve just by picking up the phone and asking.
September 2nd, 2005 at 5:21 am
Blogger goodness for Katrina victims
In yesterday’s edition of For Immediate Release: The Hobson
September 7th, 2005 at 6:12 am
I used to be the guy who said yes, no or maybe to people wanting free stuff — telephones, switchboards, long distance calls, from telegrams or telexes, and I have a fairly good idea of how big companies think when asked for donantions.
The chances of Dell or Hewlett Packard or Lexmark or Cingular giving free stuff to IABC from the corproations themselves is very, very slim. If they want to do something, they’ve already done it.
And how come IABC, a little known association of people who do something or other that almost every CEO and CFO in the owrld has never heard of, would get free cell phones? Why not the American Medical Association displaced doctors? Or displaced lawyers?
Anyway….
If I was still in the telephone business, I’d say OK on behalf of the company to major organizations, like the Red Cross or the Salvation Army.
Where I would have helped is from my own departmental budget, rather than on behalf of the overall organization I worked for.
And my department budget would be small, and there would not be much that I could do.
In this case, if I got a call from Bickford or Freeman or someone else from IABC headquarters, with a specific, narrowly focused request, chances are really good I’d find something.
If I was still at Northern Telecom, for instance, we would have proactively sent technicians and installers into the area, trying to co-ordinate with FEMA, say. And we’d be tied to the Telephone Pioneers of America, getting phones running again.
We’d probably have equipment loaded on our planes, and sent in, but to the Red Cross or Sally Ann.
But if a phone call came from IABC or PRSA to a Nortel pr person, like I used to be, I’d probably be able to find a dozen land-line telephones, or a photo assignment for some quick money, or even a switchboard for a small office, aimed at a specific, documented (even if just orally) fellow communicator in need.
But I’d need a real name of a real IABC person, with a real need, not some vague “send us telephones” request. Send them where? To whom?
Again, remembering this is based on my past corporate life –I might have been able to spring a couple of slightly outdated computers, and I probably could have talked the IT guys into leaving Office loaded, and might have shipped them off somehow to someone.
But again, I’d have needed names and addresses.
For instance, if IABC headquarters told me there were three New Orleans members stranded in Kilgore, Texas, I could have sent this shipment to city hall there, if there was some way for the stranded IABC members, living in their cars in a Wal-Mart parking lot, to know they should go to city hall and aask for a box sent to them.
And a thousand other PR people all over the world would be willing, I bet, to dig into their department budgets to help their stranded communications colleagues, specifically.
For that to work, though, IABC would actually have to do something to determine needs, track down people, make soliticitations, etc.
IABC already has members in lots of big businesses that could help. Has a member of the board called the IABC members at Kinko’s, or Cingular, or Dell, or HP, and asked these people — genuine communicators apparently and part of the IABC “family”, for specific help?
Has a staff member — maybe that new communications assistant — spent two days on the phones, calling IABC members with job titles that even suggest they might have the power to find something useful within their organizations, and start making lists of what’s available?
And has IABC made any attempt to track down members from New Orleans and develop a central registry of who is where and what they need?
Probably not.
BAK
September 7th, 2005 at 2:09 pm
Thanks for the ideas, Brian. FYI, I am speaking with HQ this afternoon regarding our displaced New Orleans members. Watch the blog for updates. By the way, I welcome your comments but what’s up the sarcastic tone?
September 8th, 2005 at 6:08 am
Brian -
Both IABC staff and volunteers from Southern Region have made contact attempts. We are collecting info on displaced members as we get it. We’ve only heard from 5 so far. All members in Mississippi are safe and sound, and relatively unscathed, compared to NO.
September 8th, 2005 at 6:23 am
Warren, I think it’s commendable that you sent e-mails to all New Orleans IABC members. The informal network within IABC is apparently working very well, too, which reflects the sense of community within our association. Thank you for your efforts and those of people on staff and other volunteers around IABC.