eChaser: July 2010 / p3

===========================================================

PEOPLE & PLACES

The Balcom Agency received a 2010 PRSA Bronze Anvil Award for its “Launching a Better Hand Sanitizer” campaign. Healthpoint, a specialty pharmaceutical company, hired Balcom in September 2009 to help launch the company’s first consumer product, Ultracept Antiseptic Handwash (since renamed OutLast Long-Lasting Hand Sanitizer). Greater Fort Worth PRSA member Margaret Ritsch, APR, was highly involved in the campaign planning and execution. Winners were recognized during a ceremony June 3 at the Equitable Tower in New York City. Bronze Anvils are possible in 65 categories and subcategories. Entries are judged by teams of PRSA members, and others with specific category expertise, across the country.

===========================================================

NEW MEMBERS

SPJ ... Jake Batsell, SMU Division of Journalism

===========================================================

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Tom Burke, APR, Greater Fort Worth PRSA

Thanks to a special gift received last Christmas, I recently got to “be like Richard Petty” and drive a 600-horsepower stock car eight laps around the 2.5-mile track at Texas Motor Speedway. My wife didn’t understand why this was a big deal. After all, she said, I drive Interstate 35 every day as if I’m racing at the Speedway. Friends figured I was checking off an item on my bucket list. Truth is, the only item on my bucket list is to not kick the bucket!

Going 130 mph like a pea crammed into a hurtling, extra-small pod (how do pro racers drive 500 miles in such conditions?) affords a fresh perspective, especially when you have to navigate banked turns and zip alongside a wall displaying black skid marks from earlier confrontations, all of which the wall won. But isn’t this what many of us in the fast-paced world of public relations do daily? We speed along, perhaps overlooking opportunities to display the art and science of our profession.

While many argue that the deep value of public relations is exemplified during a crisis, such as the BP catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, it’s too easy to forget how powerful and beneficial public relations can be in the good times. From Tom’s Shoes to the Pepsi Refresh Project, the American Express Members Project and the IBM Corporate Service Corps, companies worldwide are embracing corporate social responsibility. As Kimberly-Clark VP Laura Moore said at our June luncheon, the company and its employees contributed $21.6 million in cash and product donations and 60,000 hours to charitable causes worldwide last year. Kimberly-Clark highlighted these amazing accomplishments in its “2009 Sustainability Report Summary.” It’s a classic example of a classic definition of public relations: “Do good, then tell others.”

When you’ve done good and told others, it can make it a lot easier to pick up the pieces if you crash into a wall going 130 mph or more.

That’s the value of public relations.

-----

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Laura Hanna, IABC Fort Worth

Greetings! I am honored to be the new president of IABC Fort Worth. We have a terrific team in place, and I’m looking forward to a great year.

An impressive turnout in June for the annual Bronze Quill celebration helped us shine the spotlight on communicators who excelled in 2009. Congratulations to all award recipients. In keeping with the space theme — “2010: The Year We Make Contact with Excellence” — NASA public affairs officer Josh Byerly entertained with colorful facts and figures about astronauts, the International Space Station, upcoming shuttle launches and the future of the space program.

Our next event will be at Studios 121, the company that sponsored the Bronze Quill luncheon. More information will be coming soon.

Meet our officers for this year: past president Cheryl Hart, treasurer Tim Tune, membership VP Sara Reynolds, accreditation VP Lori De La Cruz, programming VP Silver Vasquez, secretary Ken Roberts, webmaster Betsy Deck, student relations VP Kay Colley and creative consultant April Eubanks, who also serves on the scholarship committee. A special thanks to Cheryl for her leadership, volunteerism and friendship this past year.

You know you want to get more involved in IABC this year, and opportunities abound — assisting with special events like Bronze Quill, serving on a committee, etc. It’s a perfect time to jump in. You’ll network, enhance your leadership skills and make some new friends along the way. Contact Cheryl Hart at Hart Marketing, 972-691-3209 or cheryl@hartmarketing.biz.

I hope everyone is having some fun this summer. We won’t have a meeting in July, but we will be refreshed and ready to go in August. See you then.

-----

OVER & OUT

John Dycus, Fort Worth SPJ

They’re taking your registration money and promising a fine time in return at the 2010 SPJ Convention & National Journalism Conference, Oct. 3-5 in Las Vegas. Get ready for half-day workshops on multi-platform storytelling, using and posting data for public consumption, and web video; dozens of professional development workshops on topics ranging from freelancing to “weird careers in journalism” to using U.S. Census data; and an exploratory session on the future of journalism, presented by digital journalist Mark Briggs, CEO of Serra Media and author of “JournalismNext” and “Journalism 2.0.” The list is far from static. Check back often for updates. ...

Good work, Dr. Haber. Reviewers at amazon.com are loving SPJ member Julian Haber’s new mystery/espionage thriller set in the Texas Coastal Bend and points far beyond, “A Nail in the Body of Christ.” Example: “Take the twists and turns of a terrorist plot, mix in some colorful characters both good and bad, a little spicy romance, and a fast paced ending for a most pleasureable read. The author’s evocative style has the reader smelling the sea air and enjoying the ambience of a salty port town. A hard book to put down.” That’s from someone identified as Anthea, living on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland. Not too far away to appreciate Port Aransas, apparently. ...

The First Amendment Center, Newseum and other founding partners have teamed to present the “1 for All” campaign to promote First Amendment awareness and education. SPJ is among a large group of supporting media organizations and associations helping spread the word. ...

The Dow Jones News Fund is recruiting for summer 2011 internships in business reporting, sports, news and multimedia editing. Interns serve during the summer of their junior, senior or graduate studies years and receive training before beginning paid internships with one of 60 media outlets. Info here.

Closing words: “The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.” — Albert Einstein ... “Think enough and you won’t know anything.” — poet Kenneth Patchen ... “Happy are they who don’t doubt themselves and whose pens fly across the page. I myself hesitate, I falter, I become angry and fearful, my drive diminishes as my taste improves, and I brood more over an ill-suited word than I rejoice over a well-proportioned paragraph.” — Gustav Flaubert, author of “Madame Bovary”