February Lunch: PR Stunts and Radio Promotions

Yesterday we had a WILDLY successful CCG lunch on PR stunts and radio promotions. The feedback was phenomenal. People loved our speakers:

-- Peter Shankman, entrepreneur, author, speaker, TV commentator, and CEO of The Geek factory, a boutique Marketing and PR Strategy firm located in New York City.

-- Tammy Lemley, Vice President, North American Network, who has been coordinating successful radio promotions and PR campaigns for more than a decade.

Tammy was informative. Peter was dynamic. And our audience learned A LOT.

For those of you who missed the lunch, I recommend you go out and buy Peter's book, Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work--And Why Your Company Needs Them, which can be ordered online from his website, Amazon, or B&N.

And make sure you come back on Monday when we'll post some tips from Tammy Lemley about how to run a successful radio promotion.

As always, I'll end my post with my usual plea: Let us know (via email) what topics we should cover, who you want to hear speak, where you want to eat, and anything else you want from your free CCG membership.

-- Robin

January Lunch: Let the Discussion Continue...

As we promised during the lunch, we're hoping to keep the discussion rolling with both attendees and those who couldn't attend but are invested in this topic. To that end... the questions we presented at the lunch for discussion were:

• How have you successfully leveraged the resources of your organization to benefit broader coalition efforts?
• Based on your previous experience, describe what you perceive to be pitfalls/obstacles that may impede a coalition’s success.
• How do you effectively integrate coalition objectives and messages into your organization’s daily activities and communication?
• What are the keys to sustaining participation and engagement from stakeholders in coalition activities over the long-term?
• What tools (Web-based and other) have you found to be effective to promote community building, collaboration, and networking among coalition participants?

And taking advantage of our largely non-scientific audience…

• Based on your personal observations and experience, what do you perceive to be key shortcomings in science outreach and communication that ought to be addressed for the COPUS effort to succeed?

So now it's your turn to write. Answer the questions. Give us your thoughts. Post new questions...

January Lunch: Redux

So we held our January lunch. And in the words of one of our presenters: "Today's lunch was a smashing success."

We're happy to hear our presenters were happy, and just hope our guests were as well.

I'm sure our January speakers will be sending us an overview on their presentations to post here, but in the meantime, a few notes from me about what our speakers said about coalition building:

• You need to get everyone involved and engaged. This may mean having to hold focus groups with your "crossed arms" attendees.
• You, as moderator/creator of the group, must be neutral.
• Stay calm. Most things blow over.
• Don't let the difficult people in your coalition control the agenda.
• Buy in is often easier when there isn't a member fee involved. (Don't we know it!)

For those who attended January's lunch, we'd love to hear what advice you walked away with that you found particularly helpful. So reply in the "comments" section with your take-aways and let's get the discussion started. (And keep checking back, because later this week I'll be posting our "discussion questions" from the session so we can keep the discussion going...)