Dissecting the Media Launch

I'm very excited about the upcoming arts & cultural event that is happening across Canada: Culture Days, otherwise known as a celebration of my favourite things.  With audience participation!  As a communications person, I made sure to attend their recent media launch on September 14th at the forks.  And in true Teri fashion, I feel like looking at how they did from every angle. I can't help but always be a critic.  After all, it's as good way to learn something. 

Considering Culture Days is a national event that has been organized by a small number of people, in a short amount time, they did great.  But things can always be done differently.

The Good

• They sent out a media advisory the week before the event and it contained lots of relevant info
• One of the attractions (which was of course mentioned in the media advisory) was a performance by an aerial dancer.  What media wouldn't want to capture that?
• They presented the conference in both English and French
• CBC is a sponsor of Culture Days, so it was pretty certain they would cover the event
• While the launch was outside, it was under the canopy at the forks, which took into account possible bad weather
• They integrated Aboriginal participation, which included a drum performance and a blessing of the event- always good when you're trying to be inclusive; especially when you're standing on sacred land
• They called arts organizations the morning of the event to make sure people from the arts & cultural community were going to come
• Media actually showed up!

The Not-so Good

• The media conference seemed pretty long at almost an hour.  Most of the media got what they needed and left, and they wouldn't have had a chance to do interviews one-on-one with organizers after.  A lost opportunity to drive your key messages home
• There didn't appear to be pool sound, and the canopy at the forks is surrounded by fountains.  That makes it a little more difficult for media people to get good audio
• There were too many talking heads.  Five people gave presentations, and they all pretty much said the same thing
• Media kits weren't ready when the media got there
• When I accidently grabbed a media kit off the information table, I got scolded.  I'm not sure if the person putting media kits together was the communications person or not, but as far as she knew, I could have been a reporter.  Being rude when you're representing an event or an organization isn't a good plan. 

All in all though, it was a good experience to be there, and of course it was great to represent for Arts & Culture in the city!

I'm sure I'll be talking more about Culture Days before the month is over, so stay tuned...

Narcissists with Low Self Esteem & Medical Centres with Major PR Issues

I have many things I would like to blog about.  But finding the time to blog is becoming harder and harder.

There's the whole Facebook is for narcissists with low self esteem story splashing across the news headlines.  Is it even possible to be a narcissist and have low self esteem?  Isn't that kind of an oxymoronic concept? And then Mr. Jian Ghomeshi points out on Q this morning that this crazy news story is based on an undergrad thesis.  The study that revealed those results had exactly 100 participants. Not exactly a representative group. This is a national news story?  I have a feeling it's more about the media's obsession with telling us how shallow and silly Facebook and social media in general is. Enough with the picking on social media and the people who use it!  This is one of those instances where it's evolve or die.  While many people use Facebook to annoy the people who follow them - Farmville users, I'm talking to you- it is possible to use Facebook for the greater good.  It's a great networking and promotional tool for instance! 

Then there is another PR story that crossed my desk this morning. A couple of weeks ago a woman in Winnipeg publicly criticized the Lakewood Medical Centre for refusing her elderly mother service because there was an unpaid cancellation fee. Original story here. Now this week, the woman has been banned from returning to the clinic.  According to the Winnipeg Free Press story: "Macduff said her mother got a letter from the clinic's manager saying they will waive her previous "no-show fee" but she must book her own medical appointments and find someone other than her daughter to accompany her to the clinic."  The clinic claims the daughter violated the "policy prohibiting violent or abusive patients and visitors" but refused to comment further.  While we as the general public don't know the full story- like what exactly the daughter did that was abusive or violent - from a PR perspective, this doesn't look good for the Lakewood Medical Centre.  In fact, it looks petty.  The woman's mother missed her appointment because she has severe dementia, a disease where you have good days and bad days.  Her daughter is the only person who can take her mother to appointments, and suddenly the 90 year old mother isn't able to have her primary caregiver there when she visits the doctor. In addition, the daughter is banned access from her own doctor. Without the clinic really explaining their position, the public can only conclude that the reason for the ban is that the woman took a public stance over doctors charging cancellation fees.  That isn't great PR for the Medical Centre.

You add that to the fact that in 2009, a doctor at the same clinic refused to treat a lesbian couple (a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights which says you can't be discriminated against for your sexual orientation) and the Lakewood Medical Centre has a major PR problem.  If they haven't lost patients over these incidents already, they probably will.  Maybe they've weighed the consequences  of that and have decided that it's worth the risk to ban this patient. Maybe they aren't considering the Public Relations fallout at all.  Either way, they don't seem to be doing themselves any favours.