Great post. To take it a step further, when pitching a trend story keep in mind who else you can connect the reporter with to round out the story. Some years ago, I had a client who trained and supported entrepreneurs trying to get into the Home Health Care industry. At a meeting he shared that he was starting to have a number of Assisted Living facilities and Nursing Homes signing up to learn how to provide home care. I pitched this as a trend story to a Wall St Journal reporter who jumped on it. In addition to my client, I had lined up two of their nursing home clients (one on the east and one on the west coast), an executive from a huge national assisted living company (not a client of mine) that was already offering home care, and the president of a national assisted living trade association to comment on the story. The reporter was able to easily able to put the story together with my help. Part of getting this type of coverage, contrary to another comment, is to help the reporter get the story. This not only resulted in a front of section cover story in the WSJ and all of its editions for my client, but also cemented what became a longstanding relationship with the reporter.

The reason emoticons emerged is that email and other online communications are so un-nuanced. Depending on a reader's emotional state of mind, the same words can evoke anything from agreement to rage. If a couple of characters can say, "This is a lighthearted comment", that trumps for me what the proper punctuation is. This is a very cute post indeed. But it comes within the context of how we're learning to communicate in a social digital world - where we're avatar-to-avatar, rather than face-to-face.

If you're writing for the Web, connect with a copy of the Yahoo! Style Guide - published in 2010.

Above all learn how to think and then express your thoughts in compelling writing. If you do that you'll be hired!And then recognize that public relations is about client reputation - not hype. Learn to step back, take a deep breath and think about the consequences of everything you might do on behalf of a client.

Found this in my Twitter stream promoted by @chrisbrogan. i'd say that his his super power is being a good friend! Have been wanting to delve more into mind mapping and this is a great oportunity. once i understand the process better, i'll gladly post the badge. I guess education is one way to promote a cool or useful idea! Nice meeting you!