Pimp my Pet for charity

thank goodness for the United Way campaign - sorry, the Government of Canada Workplace Charitable Campaign (affectionately known as the GCWCC). It arrives like clockwork every fall, and is a welcome respite from the work.

This year, I dusted off a campaign I developed back at Public Works, which essentially amounts to an online pet photo contest. Best Costume, Most Likely to Bite, Most Like its Owner, Best Photoshop Job... at five bucks an entry, we generated over $2000 back in 2003. Back then, we couldn't figure out how to charge for voting - this year, we've fixed that.

The GCWCC is a great chance to get together with some enthusiastic, charming people and have a little fun for a good cause. Or, as some people choose to see it, a pain-in-the-ass time of year when your colleagues lose their minds for a few weeks and keep trying to sell you stuff. And that, of course, is the challenge. How do you break through years of chocolate bar and used book sales? And how do you give folks the chance to take part in something that will not only give something back to the community, but often get you terrific exposure to new people and opportunities across the department. I have several friends who have even given years to the regional United Way campaign office through their Loaned Rep program.

Me, I just like to find fun ways to get people away from the bureaucracy for a few happy minutes. And we all know how people love their pets. I'll be pitching the idea at our all-staff meeting next week - my friend Stephane and I are MCing the event, and I'm starting to think about costumes...

post-event syndrome

We've all experienced it - some, over and over again. But it still surprises in its severity: post-event letdown. Not having a list of to dos as long as your arm waiting for you every night when you get home. There's a sense of aimlessness when the event is over, and you return to your regular life.

Once I caught up on my sleep, and on my work, and on the personal life I'd put on hold, I finally took some time to look at the photos from the event. We were lucky enough to have a first-year student volunteer who took his task as official event photog very seriously. Captured in his pictures are some lovely moments. I am very grateful to eager student volunteers... what would we ever do without them?

celebrating 25 years

The day is finally here – our celebration of 25 years will see Alumni gather tonight for a champagne reception and gala dinner/dance. The event could only have been possible with the help of a small core of dedicated fellow grads, every one of whom demonstrates how connected we are to our College and to our program.

There will be a lot of talking tonight about “family” – and I can attest that, once you join the family of PR students and graduates, you never leave. A scan of the current advisory committee members shows that Alumni come back to the program as working professionals, anxious to make a contribution to the program which gave them their start.

Tonight, I am most looking forward to seeing some old friends – some of whom I haven’t seen in many years. I am very pleased to see how many grads are joining us in these celebrations – it is a testament to their loyalty and affection for our program founders, whom we will take some special time tonight to thank for setting us along this path.

I look forward to telling you all about it in the next post…

Hill & Knowlton

When working on Service Canada’s corporate video, I had the good fortune to be able to hire Krista Thompson from Hill & Knowlton to help manage the project. She and I connected instantly – in addition to having loads of natural talent, she was smart, resourceful, and extremely organized. In seven weeks, we wrote the storyboard, traveled with a film crew to six shoots around the country, edited and finally produced a 10-minute video.

Seven weeks? That's loads of time, isn't it? Did I mention I was working in government at the time? When you factor in the time consumed on approvals, that was quite a remarkable feat!

At any rate, a year later, Krista called and asked me to lunch. She was leaving H&K and wanted to know if I wanted to try a hand at consulting. Did I?? Are you kidding?? H&K?? So I took a leave of absence and left on assignment to lead Internal and Change Management communications at H&K. And I didn’t sleep again for the next four months…

Now I know what the life of a consultant is – I’ve been one for a long time. But I never had clients overseas who required conference calls at 3 am. I didn’t have a Blackberry buzzing beside my bed at all hours of the night, every day of the week. And I certainly didn’t have to crank out the 90-page proposals that seemed to be an almost weekly part of the job. I am immensely grateful for my time at H&K – it was a great place to be when I got the news about my APR, and the projects and people were amazing. I packed more things into my portfolio in four short months than I would have in two years in government.

Ultimately, had I been 20 years younger, I would have been in my element – but as it was, I decided to reclaim my place amongst the ranks of the public service. And I finally got a little rest.

APR

Inspired by the opportunity to work with Jean, I decided it was time for me to pursue my accreditation as a PR practitioner. I looked across my last three years of work and saw the perfect case study: the customer relationship management program I built for PWGWC, where I designed a suite of comms products and a strategy to reach out to PWGSC’s client departments, industry representatives, and to keep our Minister’s office up to date on how clients were receiving our messages.

Accreditation is not for the faint of heart, nor is it for the recent graduate. It is, however, a wonderful opportunity for reflection on past accomplishments, and an excellent exercise for validating what you know. The three-step process includes a written work sample (which is essentially your case study, laid out following the classic RACE formula), a three-and-a-half-hour open book written exam, and an oral board. The Canadian Public Relations Society’s local chapters offer support through examples and workshops, and local accreditation candidates usually form study groups to help each other prepare for exam day.

My philosophy going into exam day was this: I’ve been in the business over two decades, and if I don’t know my stuff by now, I never will. I brought along a few of my favourite sources so I could throw in some key quotes, but my main reference for the exam was my own body of work. In the final result, that seemed to be enough: I received the top written exam score, and the top national overall mark for that year. I received my APR at the national conference in Halifax, and was very proud to do so.

For even the most modest among you, I encourage your to give yourself this gift. It is credibility, recognition, and a little leg up over the “competition”. And it feels surprisingly nice to slip that pin into your lapel now and then.

I will be blogging a lot more about accreditation. There is much to discuss regarding its value in the marketplace, and its utility as a credential when competing for jobs in the federal public service. But I will have to come back to that at another time – my gala awaits…

Service Canada

I had been at PWGSC, working out of Place du Portage, for a few years when I caught wind of the Service Canada story. I was told that there was this crazy bunch of people trying to change how Canadians access their government services. Instead of having to bump around namelessly from jurisdiction to department to bureaucratic answering machine, they were proposing a “one-stop shop” for all government services.

My little practitioner’s heart just leapt. Now here was a cause I could get behind – a story I wanted to help tell! The organization was only a couple of months old, and they were still building their shop. Imagine my delight when I discovered that their DG of Communications was Jean Valin – not only an APR, but a Fellow of CPRS and former President of CPRS Ottawa. He took one look at my cover letter, saw Algonquin and “PR”, and I had an interview.

Now let me clarify something: it RARELY happens that way. Like my immovable Y2k deadline, government is only prompt when absolutely pressed. But Jean was pressed. I was qualified, so I deployed over. Within the first year, I had helped shape the corporate comms plan, produced a corporate video, a public awareness brochure, and witnessed the birth of a brilliant series of TV spots: the Service Canada Booth campaign. Like building a ballet had been, it was a wonderful experience to be part of the creation of something new - and you don't get those chances very often in government!

the 20th anniversary

It was stunning enough to witness the turn of the millennium – but to suddenly discover that it’s been 20 years since you started College is another shock. In 2004, we marked the 20th anniversary of the creation of the program with a reunion event.

The highlight of the night was the declaration by PR Program friend (and then-Mayor of Ottawa) Bob Chiarelli of “Claudine Wilson Day” in Ottawa. The declaration was in recognition of her leadership in the program, and its contributions to the community over the last 20 years.

It was at that point that I realized that we were building a legacy not only for the program, but for the community in which we live and work. At the time of the 20th anniversary, we had already raised close to $100,000 for various community charities, and were on our way to doubling that number.

Is it any wonder I am such a proud grad?

the Government of Canada

Now these high-tech clients were all very well – high-strung, high-maintenance, but high-return, too. However, the brass ring in consulting is landing that first government contract. This was my next goal – and in 1999, I was hired to lead communications for the Y2k program focused on preparing all federal government buildings to enter the year 2000. My client, Public Works and Government Services Canada, acts as the federal landlord, responsible for accommodating federal employees in spaces across the country. My client's job was to test and verify that all of the building systems were Y2k compliant, and wouldn’t fail when the clock ticked over on January 1st, 2000 - and my job was to communicate with some 28 other federal departments, industry, and our Minister's office on the state of our preparations.

The Y2k project was intense and driven by an immovable deadline – and as it turned out, it taught me nothing useful about how government manages its deadlines! Frankly, following Y2k, I don’t think I witnessed another deadline which didn’t move like a leaf in the breeze… but nevertheless, my foot was in the door, and my relationship with the feds was born. The excellent contacts and working networks I built across government to support our Y2k program stood me in good stead as I competed for and won another contract to lead communications for employee and industry relations for a departmental renewal initiative.

Eventually, as the contracting dollars began to shrink, I had the opportunity to join the public service through a competitive process. I struggled a little with giving up my “freedom”, but the promise of paid vacations and sick leave were finally enough to persuade me to give up the big bucks and trade them in for steady employment. I haven’t really looked back since.

Careerbridge

The early and mid 1990s were an exciting time to be in communications – and working with technology clients allowed me access to some pretty cool tools, too. In addition to embracing hardware innovations like Palm Pilots and cell phones, I couldn’t wait to take advantage of e-mail and the internet, which was absolutely revolutionizing the world for communicators.

I joined Careerbridge Corporation when my teaching career and my high-tech consulting business were competing for my attention. As the PR director for this new high-tech startup, I was charged with getting trade media excited about a new web-based recruiting software – a precursor to Monster.com. With free resume posting and job browsing available to a large and talented pool of high-tech workers, Careerbridge was able to attract employers like Nortel, Mitel, Newbridge and many others to subscribe to a dedicated, focused recruitment portal that even allowed for “virtual interviewing” via webconference. It was a very exciting story to tell.

As we were putting together our case study newsletter and media kit, I was looking for a catchy headline. I was doodling (as I often do)…. “e-mail”, “e-commerce”, hmmmm, how about “e-cruiting”? Well, let’s just say that the slogan – while it was embraced – ended up lasting longer than the company. Shortly after I was laid off to save budget, they sold the company and, like many tech startups, the principals made their bang and moved on. My legacy? A great coffee cup, a nice denim shirt, about $200,000 worth of media coverage (including the front page of the Globe’s financial section), a cool slogan you’re just going to have to take my word that I created, and a very useful education in the world of high tech.

the first client (… and the second…)

You never know where that first client will appear – or how you will find them. My first client came through the classified ads, and winning that account represented for me an act of sheer bravery and chutzpah. My second client was, by contrast, a kind of repeat customer – as a teenager, I had babysat his two girls. Years later, after a lunch with my father, he called to ask for some help with a newsletter.

Now here’s the lesson I learned from our first lunch: sometimes (as it turns out, more often than you might think), clients don’t actually know what they want. Many think they do, but if you are a good practitioner with the patience to listen for awhile, you may discover that they need something entirely different.

My newsletter client needed an entire PR program: media relations, customer relations, and a trade show/conference outreach strategy. But he only realized that after our conversation had probed why he wanted that newsletter, to whom he intended to give it, and how he planned to use it as part of his overall communications program.

The other thing I learned from my newsletter client is that I was on to the right business model. My philosophy with a corporate account like his was that I could help to define the PR program, develop the tools, and train the people on staff who would take the program and run with it. I was, essentially, working myself out of a job. It was my client who first pointed it out, in fact: with respect, he saluted my choice, and said that it was a business approach that would resonate particularly well in the high-tech consulting world, where I hoped to parlay our work together into some referrals.

Gagne Creative Communications

Suddenly unemployed, I faced another crossroad. I had been toying with the idea of heading overseas to visit a friend who worked with the Canadian foreign service, and called her to look at some dates. Before I knew it, I was putting things in storage, selling my car, and headed to Germany with no firm plans to return.

I spent the next three months in Germany licking my wounds and indulging in glorious day and weekend trips, and subsequently ended up in England where I helped promote, renovate and run a small bed-and-breakfast in Canterbury. As a recent tourist and rabid fan of the little university town, I got to know it in some ways better than my new local friends - so I was an excellent hostess, knowing all the best tours and where to take the best pictures. I had free room and board, along with a little PR work to keep my hand in.

Alas, six months after leaving home, my travel visa required me to return to Ottawa. Looking through the classifieds, I saw a tiny ad for a PR person for a local charity. The salary was pitiable – but I realized I could likely help them on a contract basis for a fraction of those salary dollars. Pitching the idea to the GM, I landed my first client, and my consultancy was born.

I will always cherish the freedom self-employment gave me. I never set a meeting time before 9, and controlled when and how I spent my days. The financial advantages continue to enrich my life – and I give much credit to my father, who told me early on: “remember to spend your before-tax dollars on the things that you need – you only pay tax on what’s left over!”

my first recession

I recall vividly when the summons came. On a beautiful Friday morning in the summer of 1991, I was to present myself to the Chairman of the Board of Directors, a corporate tax lawyer whose impressive offices loomed over the downtown court house. When I arrived, I was ushered into a board room where the GM and the chairman were sitting waiting for me. The axe fell, and my jaw followed it: I was laid off. I had two weeks’ notice and was out on my ass. They would be keeping on my assistant, whose smaller salary and year of experience working with me would help to see them through the next season.

Faced with two weeks to ponder my legacy to the company, I realized that it was more important to me that they survive than it was to express my outrage at being dumped so unceremoniously. I built a detailed work plan to get them through the coming tour, and left careful instructions to help them manage their media and public relations campaigns.

Sadly, the company only survived one more year before the doors closed forever. The company scattered to the winds, and the building was taken down shortly after that. All we have left are the memories – and some pretty great tour posters, if I do say so myself.

The Tin Soldier

Although my time with Ottawa Ballet was short – just under two years – it was enough to see us produce two dance tours, and two original productions. The most remarkable of these was The Tin Soldier, an original ballet based on the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, for which we created original music, costumes, and choreography.

Building a ballet from the ground up requires significant funding. Through our innovative “Build a Ballet” program, we broke down the production into its component parts, such as choreography, lighting, set design, etc., and priced out the costs associated with each character in the piece. We then did a targeted marketing campaign matching potential business partners with appropriately-themed sponsorship opportunities. For example, we approached Tinkers Gourmet Cookware to sponsor the character of the Tinker in the ballet. Little by little, we covered the costs of mounting the ballet, and on opening night, our sponsors were thrilled to be able to identify so closely with their part of the production.

Our full dress rehearsal the night before we opened was turned into an invitation-only children’s event, and we reached out to community groups and the Children’s Hospital to identify families to fill the seats. I still remember sitting in the dark that night, finally seeing the entire ballet run through from start to finish, and after all that work, I found myself weeping like a proud mom. Frankly, I have yet to replicate the feeling of immense pride and accomplishment I felt for having been part of creating such a beautiful work of art. As the curtain came down on that first performance, I thought I’d never feel it again. Fortunately, the followup CBC tv production of “The Tin Solder” has become something of a Christmas tradition, so I get to revisit my old friends every year.

Ballet on Bank Street

After the excitement of opening Centrepointe Theatre, my marketing job for Nepean’s Parks and Recreation department seemed to devolve to simply promoting kids gym programs and art classes. Certainly a noble enough calling, but I was looking for a new thrill. Right on cue, the ballet company with whom we were co-producing a dance series announced that their Director of Communications had quit. "Hmmmm," thought I: "is this what I’ve been looking for?"

The next day, I was sitting in a tiny office upstairs from the old CHEZ studios in the Byward Market, chatting with a leotard-clad Frank Augustyn about what he was trying to do with Ottawa Ballet. “I want to bring a new audience to dance” he said – and I could tell by the fire in his (exquisitely lovely) eyes that he meant it! I had found a new home. Leaving behind my city pension, I took a cut in pay and dove into the arts full time.

A new home for the company was one of our first challenges. Working with our corporate sponsor Standard Life Assurance, we put together a deal which saw us moving into a brand new, street-level studio at 142 Bank Street. Based on a model Frank had seen in a shopping mall in Florida, the concept was to bring classical ballet out of the shadows and plunk it down on one of the busiest streets in Ottawa. We worked with local merchants to promote “Ballet on Bank” at various sidewalk sales and other events, and opened up our rehearsal space to other community dance groups.

In time, Ottawa Ballet was to become another victim of the recession, and the spot where our studios once stood is now, literally, a parking lot… but nothing can take away my memory of the day that Ballet came to Bank Street.

Centrepointe Theatre opening

In June of 1988, I was the City’s Marketing Officer, helping with the opening of the new Nepean City Hall at 101 Centrepointe Drive, featuring offices for city staff, a 900+ seat theatre, a public library, multi-purpose council chamber, and visual arts gallery. Centrepointe Theatre signaled an impressive step forward for the performing arts in the region, as it provided access to professional-level facilities to dozens of community groups. A black tie event to open the space featured a performance by Ottawa native Rich Little in a performance of Peter and the Wolf, accompanied by the Nepean Philharmonic Orchestra. Funds were raised to create the Nepean Endowment Fund for the Performing Arts, providing support to dozens of community arts groups.

In fact, as a PR practitioner, I loved the fact that the story of Centrepointe Theatre we were telling was the story of its place in the community. The Box Office, front of house and production facilities were operated with the support of a dedicated corps of volunteers who received training from experienced professionals. Many a budding director, set designer, and producer cut his or her chops on a Nepean Little Theatre or Les Petits Ballets show. By building shows from the ground up, encouraging local talent, Centrepointe Theatre, in the 20 years since its opening, has put a real sense of community into the community arts scene in Ottawa.

This philosophy was very easy for me to embrace as a budding PR practitioner, and I willingly subscribed to the first season, and sponsored a seat in the theatre. My name is still inscribed on one of its seats as a founding member of the endowment fund, and I now look forward to supporting the new Shenkman Arts Centre in Orleans, built in that same spirit these twenty years later.

the Nepean sandstone project

My first major project with the City of Nepean saw me traveling from event to event with a maquette of the proposed new City Hall which was being constructed on Centrepointe Drive. Our message for taxpayers: this is your facility, and we are proud to tell you that it’s already paid for. This was, needless to say, a good news message, and a great introduction to the business of PR.

We also travelled with a slab of Nepean sandstone into which residents were invited to help us carve the city’s official Coat of Arms. My partner and co-facilitator in the exhibit was a man named Robert Brown, a third-generation stone carver whose family had helped build the Rideau Canal. After two years of public events around the region (and with a little final help from Robert), the finished product was installed outside the Council Chambers of the new building.

As I lead my first tour of the new facility when it opened in 1988, that Coat of Arms was there to remind me of the thousands of conversations I’d had with Nepean residents leading up to the unveiling. I recognized many of the faces of the young amateur carvers as they roamed the new library and theatre spaces. And I knew that I’d been part of a great PR project. One which I could come back and visit for many years to come.

the Algonquin College and PR family

I remember vividly sitting in my first Mass Communications lecture at university, amongst some 300-odd nervous youngsters, waiting for The Man to show up and enlighten me. When he finally showed – late, trailing his entourage of TAs and adjuncts – I was underwhelmed. Even from the depths of that giant lecture hall, I could see that he was a small, high-strung little man who clearly wanted to set the tone for the coming year with the strength and conviction of his opening remarks. “Refer to your handouts if you wish to follow along” said he as he began to lay out the curriculum for the coming year. For the first time, I looked at the mimeographed sheets I had been handed as I entered the hall, and what I saw set the course of my life: the Man, however mighty he might think he was, could not spell. And what was worse, his grammar sucked, too.

Four years later, I took my new English degree, left The Man, and never looked back. When I entered my first class at Algonquin the following year, I looked around at my 30-odd classmates who, like me, were about to embark on this brand new adventure, and knew it was going to be a whole new ball game. I would know every one of their names by week’s end, and maintain contact with many of them to this day. Together, we shared a remarkable journey through the birth of the PR program, and I, like many of my fellow alumni, still feel a very strong connection. It has never occurred to me to turn away from Algonquin – I will always feel that it is there that I found my first academic home.

a Prof is born…

It started small: supervising a few shifts in the agency, giving a few guest talks. But there was a little flicker deep inside of me that responded early on to being in front of a class full of people. I loved being able to encourage a discussion during which new ideas were explored – and most of all, I was hooked on the rush that came from seeing the light bulb go on for a student. And let me tell you, I have learned as much from my students as they have from me. Teaching compels me to keep current on trends in the practice, and to keep true to the highest standards and principles of our profession.

Over time, I’ve had the chance to teach almost every core course in Algonquin's PR program. I taught full-time through two sabbaticals, and in the early years supplemented my growing consulting business with part-time teaching. I have been pleased to see how technological developments have made much of the more mundane aspects of teaching easier, and allowed for more innovation in the classroom. I am taking this year off from the College classroom to focus on our program's anniversary celebrations, and to explore more of the newest teaching tools and models including those for delivering online and distance education.

Meanwhile, I have been able to bring my teaching experience to the Service Canada College, which delivers service excellence and program-related training to thousands of employees across the country. I will be focusing on curriculum as well as content development for an employee engagement program. Meanwhile, I renew my commitment daily to learning and growing as a coach, mentor, and willing participant in the exploration of new ideas.

on consulting

The existence of a Public Relations program in Ottawa was not a secret for long. Soon, we were getting enquiries from outside organizations wanting to hear about our curriculum, and interested in securing the services of a student or graduate. In the early days, we also had the opportunity to develop customized training programs on an ad-hoc basis.

In fact, one of my first “consulting” gigs was to develop a media training session for a local utility company. As a graduate with a good understanding of the municipal infrastructure, I was in a good spot to design and deliver the workshop for their senior executives. Through a three-hour session, we covered the basics of handling media enquiries, and were able to run through some practice scenarios with the spokespersons-in-training. Not only was I now an employed graduate, I was also beginning to develop some pretty robust consulting skills!

the PR agency

One of the most innovative aspects of the two-year PR program is the second-year-run student PR agency. Clients from the non-profit sector who would otherwise be unable to afford PR services benefit from students keen to apply what they’ve learned about media relations, special event planning, communications and public relations in a “real-world” setting. My agency clients included Ottawa’s Savoy Society, and my own client, the Canadian Industrial Computer Society.

The agency work was so interesting that I remained committed to helping students even after I graduated. I worked with students as they took on clients such as the Neil Squire Society, Greeley Players, and Algonquin’s own Horticulture Program for their annual Spring Flower Show. The client list has grown into the dozens since we first hung up the shingle, many of them returning year after year – a true testament to the consistently high quality of the students’ work. And I can truly say that I honed my client relationship management skills in this setting – skills which were to serve me well in my own consulting business.

Information Officer, ‘80s style

As a member of the three-person “information services” team at the City of Nepean, my colleague Lois and I were essentially the city’s 4-1-1 service. In the days before databases and the internet, residents often turned to City Hall for answers to questions as wide-ranging as “how do I get Mom placed in an old folks’ home?” to “how do I get rid of the skunk under my porch?” to “where is the nearest bus stop?”

Over the course of a couple of years, we built the Black Book – a three-ring binder stuffed with every scrap of information we would possibly need. Our motto was that if we didn’t have the answer, we would find it and get back to the citizen. We sourced out provincial and federal contacts, community organizations, advocacy groups, crisis and information lines – everything we could to add to our bag of tricks.

I see now that we were trying to be the “Service Canada” of the City of Nepean: no wrong door, focused on service, we always delivered for our clients. But it sure would have been easier with a database…