IABC Café

Recently, I met Henry Eason, a member of the San Francisco chapter, who told me a story that exemplifies how members can use the IABC network.  It warmed my heart.  It may not warm yours, but I hope you will follow his example, when you are looking for help on a work project.

Here’s the story:

“As public relations and marketing generalists, our firm has represented numerous industries, but sometimes we get a little rusty if we haven’t worked in a particular field in awhile.

“Recently, when we were asked to bid on a project in a field in which we had not worked for almost 10 years, we had to get up to date…fast!

“After searching the Web without much satisfaction, I knew I really need to talk to a vertical market expert.  But who?  I did not want to call a competitor in this area.

“That’s when I decided to go to IABC’s Web site and search for members in other areas of the country who had this expertise.  I visited this page.

“It worked!  Amazingly.

“I used the IABC database to search by “public relations” and the particular industry–and bingo!  Several dozen names came up.  I put in calls to five people, got voice mail and told them I was an IABC member reaching out to them.  Three of them called me back and were happy to speak to me.  One of them was incredibly knowledgeable and generously gave me an excellent briefing.”

That’s the way the IABC network is supposed to work.  I hope you are making it work for you.

I am referring, of course, to CW, or more specifically Angelo Fernando’s “Tech Talk,” which appears in each issue of CW. It recently won a Maggie Award.

The Maggies are an annual awards program through the Western Publications Association for all publications west of the Mississippi.

Entered in the category of best regularly featured department/section/column in a trade magazine, Angelo’s column beat seven other competitors, including the Stanford Social Innnovation Review and Special Events magazine.

The winning articles were “Social Media Changes the Rules” (Jan/Feb 07), “Transparency Under Attack” (March/April 07) and “The Wisdom of Wikipedians” (Nov/Dec 07).

A total of 94 awards were given to print and digital publications, for both editorial and design. Publications are judged on their readability, focus, depth of research, cohesiveness and how well they meet their objectives. The Maggie award has been around for 57 years and is considered among the highest honors in the publishing industry.

So, Angelo and CW are in good company. I hope all IABC members are regular readers.

The IABC eXchange is currently in the public beta stage. That’s a geek’s way of saying that we are working with our members to test out eXchange and using their comments to make improvements. Come to think of it, eXchange, like IABC, will always be in a public beta stage. We are always trying to provide better services for our members.

I’d like to let you know about some recent upgrades. First, on the IABC homepage you’ll see the eXchange logo with links to recent posts.

On the eXchange welcome page, you’ll see a link to “browse the complete list“. And in the right column, you’ll see “Recent eXchange posts,” and “Recently Updated Sites”. There is quite a variety. Here’s a sample of some of the public blogs:

Communicators Counterculture

Future Comm

LPT

Food, Drink and Travel

Brazilian Way of Doing Communication

Those are only a few on the list. Take a look at these blogs. Take a look at some others. Create your own. And let us know how we can continue to improve eXchange.