Special Speech

Building a website is only half of the battle. The other half is the tough part, getting people to visit. A quality website is worthless without a steady stream of people that can make use of the information (and possibly make you money, depending on the type of website in question).

Never fear though, because we have some great ways to bring traffic to your website. Before you know it, you’ll have more visitors than you know what to do with!

The first point is the obvious one. You’ve got to have a website worth visiting. Quality content that is updated consistently is the key. Ask yourself, if you were just a normal visitor, would you want to visit this website? Is there anything you would find of use? If the answer is no, start by changing that first.

-Linking Up-

Getting links to your site is a great way to achieve quick, quality traffic. It can also be quite difficult, since you have to convince a webmaster that your site is good enough to show their visitors. An easy way, without dealing directly with humans, is to go around and submit your website to free directories. A simple Google search, with some creativity, will uncover thousands of free directories that have categories for nearly everything. These directories are awesome ways to get traffic to your site, as well as influence the search engines a little bit.

The other way to get links is the old fashioned way. Fire up your email client, and send out some emails to the owners of websites you feel would be willing to link to you. Don’t spam sites, but write quality emails to the owners asking if they would be interested in linking to your site. The best kind of websites to email are those with “links” pages, as they are the most likely to add you, since there is already a place for your site to go.

-The Search Engines-

By far the number one tool that people use to find information, search engines are definitely something you want to have on your site. Focus on the big three - Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Forget the rest. The others won’t bring you enough traffic to make it worth while.

The best way to tame a search engine is to get it to see plenty of links to your site. Not spammy ones, because they will discount your site for that, but direct links to your site from high quality websites. Remember, if you want to rank high in search engines, you have to start by going out and gathering links. There is no other legitimate way.

Manually submitting your site to a search engine doesn’t do much, as if you have any number of backlinks at all, the spiders will find your site with no issues. If you don’t have enough links for them to find you, then there is no way you will rank high anyway.

Be sure to have clear titles for your website. Don’t use the same title for every page on your site, make each one a unique, descriptive title for each individual page. This is very important.

Don’t panic if you don’t rank well at first. Most engines, especially Google, have “sandboxes” that they put new websites in for the first few months. You probably won’t rank well until after that period is over.

-Your PR Rating-

Google uses a system of rating websites called PR, short for Page Rank. PR is a score, between 1 and 10, that is given to an individual page based upon the number and quality of links pointing to that web page. When a page with a PR rating links to another page, it “passes on” some of its PR to that page. For example, if I have a new web page, with no PR rating, and a PR 6 page links to it, that page may eventually have a PR rating of, say, 4 or 5. Google uses the PR rating of a page to help decide where to place it on search results for a particular keyword. Keep in mind, however, that PR is not the only factor used in deciding where you will rank with search engines, it is just one of many.

You can view the PR rating of a website by downloading the free Google toolbar.

-Non-Reciprocal Linking-

Webmasters commonly use a form of linking known as reciprocal linking, which is just trading links. Site A links to site B, and site B links back to site A. It’s a good idea in theory, however, search engines have started picking up on it. Link trading is no longer a good thing to do. The best kind of linking is to have a one-way link to your site (you can talk a webmaster into it by being nice, or perhaps by trading services, or maybe even buying a link from him or her), or by finding a webmaster with more than one site to link with.

If you choose the latter, the most common way is for you to link to someone’s site, and for them to link back to your site on a different site of theirs. For example, you have a website (we’ll call it site “B”), and the other person has two websites (we’ll call them site “A” and site “C”). Site A links to site B, which links to site C. Search engines can’t figure this out, and you both get quality links back to your sites. Just be sure that site C doesn’t link to site A to form a ring, other wise it’s just old-fashioned reciprocal linking with a third site thrown in.

-Press Releases-

An easy way to get traffic to your site is to issue press releases. It can be gold when it comes to traffic, but oddly enough, it is often overlooked by webmasters. It doesn’t take much time to set up a press release, and there are plenty of free PR publishing websites on the internet, so set aside some time to issue one. The rewards could quite well be worth your time.

-RSS Feeds-

An RSS news feed on your website is another way to get traffic to your site that is often overlooked. Keep in mind, however, this will be useless unless you update your site with quality content, and often too.

-Gotta Spend Money to Make Money-

If all else fails, there are two sure-fire ways to get traffic to your site, but they will both cost you money. The first is the easiest: Simply hire an SEO (Search-Engine-Optimization) firm. They are pros that specialize in making your website rank well in search engines. They will cost you a pretty penny, but turn your site over to them, and they’ll do all of the work for you.

The other way is Pay-Per-Click advertising, such as the Google Adwords program. A carefully configured campaign will allow you to pay a few cents per click to your site, and if you have a for-profit website, it is very easy to turn those clicks into profit for yourself, with very little work. It’s definitely worth a shot if you have never tried it before.

Ryan Bauer is a large-scale webmaster who runs a Web Hosting Review website and writes how-to articles for advanced computer users.

Can you always trust your dentists’ recommendations? Think for yourself - in the last 30 years the health of our teeth has improved dramatically. We drink fluoridated water, which almost eliminated decay in our teeth.

We eat better, we brush and floss. Yet the amount of money we spend on dental care continues to rise. Could it be connected to the fact that the amount of dentists is increasing every year without any proportion to increases in population?

Let’s face it - your dentist is in a business like everyone else. And since it is a very attractive business (the dentists’ income is three to five times above the average), more and more students are graduating from dental schools every year.

What does it mean to your dentist? He has to face a very tough competition. He must pay his increasing costs (malpractice insurance, new materials, office maintenance) from an ever shrinking pool of potential patients. The only way he can do it is by raising income derived from each patient.

What does it mean to you? You are the one, who is asked to pay the price. As the marketing experts phrase it: “In order to stay in business, a dentist must offer bigger and better services”. Translate it into regular language - the dentist must try to sell you more services regardless whether you need them or not.

The amount of money we spend on dental medical services is already insane and it grows every year. A dentist pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for his rising insurance costs, office maintenance, assistant and secretary salaries. If he makes less than $400,000 a year, he considers himself a failure.

There is a clear contradiction here. You want to spend as less as possible on your dental care, and your dentist will earn less if he does that.

Yes, I know. Your dentist is a decent person. He wouldn’t do such things. I agree with you. But often there is no clear-cut solution (in most cases). I want to believe that most dentists are good. But why are their prices keep rising?

Check for yourself. How many seminars are on the Net promising to increase a dentist’s profits. And what exactly do they preach? Selling you services, which you might not need.

Evaluate your dentist’s recommendations using the same common sense, as you would apply to any other business proposition. Is it really necessary? Is there some other alternative treatment, which may achieve the same result?

With the amount of information available today on the Internet you can educate yourself in the new and not so new techniques used for the dental care. You might be able to save a lot of money that way. And yes, by educating yourself you can have better teeth.

To learn more about how to acquire better things in life and save money visit Wise-Consumer.net

Safety at High Attitude
The Rockies Mountains rest from 5,000 to 14,000 feet above sea level which equates to less oxygen. The fact that oxygen is one third less than at sea level can make low-landers feel sluggish and may bring about headaches, insomnia, nausea, fatigue and a shortness of breath. The medical term for these symptoms is Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). Generally speaking, the faster one ascends to the higher altitudes, the greater their chances of getting AMS. The symptoms can occur six hours to two days after ascent and can take up to a week to subside. Supplemental oxygen and descent to lower altitudes are the primary treatments for AMS. People with severe headaches. poor balance and extreme shortness of breath should seek medical attention immediately. Because our bodies need time to acclimate to the thin air, it is suggested that you avoid or moderately intake alcohol and caffeine for a few days, drink plenty of water, load up on carbohydrates, eat lightly and do not overexert yourself as it increases your oxygen demands. That may be hard considering you only have a 3-7 day vacation planned. In my experience I have only suffered attitude sickness when I have flown into an airport over 5000 feet and proceeded to play at attitudes over 9,000 feet with 24 hours. That may change as age catches up with me, but generally do some shopping in the mountain towns the first day you arrive and save two day for the real adventure.

B.J. Baker is an avid outdoor enthusiast who currently resides in The Woodlands, Texas. As a child, BJ accompanied his family on family excursions to Japan, China, South East Asia, Europe and to the Rockies snow skiing. Still traveling the world and instilled with a love for travel and adventure, today BJ is the owner of several travel websites. www.placestosleep.com, www.vacationresorttravel.com, www.advenquest.com, and www.snow-skiing.com.

The adoption of collaborative applications and knowledge management technologies by the legal profession has proceeded far less rapidly than many people would have expected or hoped. While vendors of data mining, knowledge management and other information technologies consistently see the legal profession as a fertile market for their products and initiatives, they are often disappointed by the resistance they find by lawyers and law firms. Why have advanced and sophisticated information techniques made so little impact on the information-intensive legal profession? What can be done to open up the legal market? In spite of the general climate of resistance, what projects are good candidates for these techniques?

There is certain inevitability to the entry of knowledge management and artificial intelligence approaches in the legal profession, whether the push comes from within the profession or from external pressures from clients and competitors. This paper will discuss some of the needs that law firms want to address with artificial intelligence and knowledge management projects, the resistance barriers in law firms, and then move on to list some attractive target areas for these approaches and factors that will contribute to success of these types of projects.

1. Needs Law Firms Seek to Address.

As part of an information intensive profession, lawyers and law firms create, use and store vast amounts of information in connection with their work. This information has a recognized value because it holds experience and expertise learned and maintained by legal organizations. Too often, however, the transfer of this knowledge inside or outside the firm occurs by happenstance or through one-on-one conversations without a sharing of information by all who need the information. Law firms want to tap into the value of their information in systematic and effective ways.

A. Not Reinventing the Wheel. To a surprising extent, in many law firms research is often duplicated, and agreements and other documents are created from scratch when models for such agreements already exist. The concern is not just inefficiency but also the inability to take advantage of best practices and current information and to make proper assignments to people with appropriate experience. With varying degrees of success, all firms have made efforts to implement techniques such as brief banks, standardized forms, training manual and documentation of procedures. Document assembly is one example of a technology used to capture prior efforts and to standardize best practices.

B. Knowledge Transfer and Mentoring. It is highly desirable to transfer the knowledge and even wisdom of older attorneys down to younger attorneys. In many cases, older attorneys may leave a firm or even die without the knowledge and other benefits of their experience being captured in a usable fashion. Not only is there a loss of substantive practice knowledge, but far too often there is the loss of the history and stories of a firm culture. There is a growing recognition of how much information is carried by way of story-telling. Core knowledge about a firm and its practices are encoded in its “myths and legends.” Where transfer of this experience and expertise is not encouraged and facilitated, the knowledge of important historical details, such as how difficult management, ethical and other situations were handled, is no longer available for later generations of the firm. The transmission of core values and wisdom is either hindered or does not occur. Increasingly, law firms are recognizing the value of this loss and emphasizing the role of senior attorneys must play in mentoring other attorneys.

C. Efficient Delivery of Legal Services. Attorneys arguably work many more hours than other “knowledge workers.” There is often a question of whether attorneys are simply working harder rather than working smarter. Both attorneys and clients see the benefits of more efficient delivery of legal services. Attorneys are increasingly aware of productivity gains achieved in other businesses by use of technology and find that their clients who have achieved such gains through the use of technology are pressuring law firms to adopt the same approaches. In other cases, business clients expect law firms to have certain technologies in place and are not willing to pay lawyers to deliver work in what is seen as inefficient and expensive ways.

D. Information Overload. Attorneys are inundated with paper, e-mail, advance sheets, journals, newsletters, web pages and a rising tide of information falling over them. Keeping up with developments in a practice area can take a substantial amount of time. As attorneys take advantage of e-mail newsletters, e-mail discussion lists, and other Internet resources, the symptoms of information overload can become very apparent. The need to organize, process and store in a retrievable fashion relevant information has become increasingly important.

E. Employee Retention. The new generation of lawyers leaving law school has been raised in an era of computers. Soon we will have a generation of law students who have never known a time when the Internet was not available. The level of expectations and reliance of sophisticated approaches to information and technology of these lawyers is very high. Law firms have found and will continue to find unwillingness by these lawyers to stay at firms that do not have state-of-the-art approaches to information. Law firms realize that addressing technology concerns is an essential part of attracting and retaining the best talent.

2. Resistance Barriers to Knowledge Management Projects.

A. Culture of Individual Practices. Nearly every successful knowledge management project has at its roots an organization in which there is a culture of sharing of information. More important, success grows from a culture of willingly sharing information. While financial incentives can help create a spirit of willingness, the trick is to create a culture where the benefits of sharing information are seen as real and sharing knowledge becomes second nature. Many firms are often described as a collection of individual practices. Even within specific practice areas, lawyers may work in a very autonomous manner. In addition, lawyers in one practice area may see little or no commonality with lawyers in other practice areas. At a more basic level, there is often a divide between litigation attorneys and transactional attorneys that is difficult to bridge.

B. Resistance to Technology. Far too often, the attorneys, especially older attorneys, who must be involved in the transfer of knowledge down to other attorneys, have a reluctance to use technology. Ironically, attorneys whose whole careers show a demonstrated ability to learn completely new areas of knowledge during the preparation of cases or through their representation of clients in a particular industry will balk at the notion of using computers. This reluctance to learn hardware and specific software can result in an unwillingness to be involved in “technology” at any level, even including the unwillingness to be assisted in knowledge transfer techniques that would involve the use of technology.

C. Lack of Time. The increasing emphasis on massive billable hour requirements tends to leave lawyers with little time and opportunity to create expert systems, highly organized data structures, or other artificial intelligence and knowledge management techniques. All of these efforts require the investment of substantial amounts of upfront time. Systems that require large amounts of upfront organization have little chance of succeeding in most law firms. Techniques that may involve the ability to process existing information “as it lies” will have the greatest opportunity for success.

D. Inability to Measure Returns. Metrics are not readily available that would help law firms measure the financial return of knowledge management applications. Where billing structures are not changed, the efficiencies obtained through these types of applications may not benefit a firm financially. For example, while the idea of document assembly has long been attractive to lawyers, the reality of reducing a several hour drafting job to ten minutes is not financially advantageous if billing continues to be based on a pure billable hours basis.

E. Incentive Structures. While there are a few firms that have created positions such as “chief knowledge officers,” in many cases attorneys interested in knowledge management projects do them on a voluntary basis or may even be penalized for their efforts if these efforts diminish their amount of billable hours. In a traditional law firm, there is often a lack of incentive structures to motivate lawyers to be involved in a knowledge management project. In firms where knowledge management efforts, such as brief banks, or collections of memoranda have been tried, with unsuccessful results, there is often a reluctance to try again and a tendency to dismiss the whole notion of knowledge management rather than to analyze carefully where the prior projects failed and develop more effective new projects.

3. Attractive Areas for Knowledge Management Projects

It is becoming increasingly apparent that large-scale, firm-wide knowledge management techniques have little chance of success in law firms, especially if they are the first project undertaken. Discrete, well-considered pilot projects that can be scaled up and rolled out throughout the firm have a much greater opportunity of success. Similarly, targeted, incremental approaches that work within the existing knowledge flow of the firm are preferable to attempts to reorganize how people work. Examples of projects that should be given careful consideration are:

A. Litigation Strategy. A good starting project for many law firms would be an application in the area of litigation strategy. Excellent tools are available and the return on investment in this area can readily be perceived.

A Knowledge Management solution would allow lawyers to pull information that otherwise might be hidden in legal pads, bankers’ boxes, or in the memories of individual lawyers into a format that allows lawyers to gather and analyze facts in a helpful manner. Through a simple method of tagging information, lawyers can use a KM solution to find answers to questions previously difficult to obtain. For example, a lawyer preparing a summary judgment motion can, in a matter of seconds, retrieve a list of all undisputed facts in the case relating to the issue about which they are writing. A lawyer can assess the strength of a case by seeing a list of all undisputed facts that have been judged by that lawyer or other members of the team as highly unfavorable.

A properly deployed KM solution should create a method for looking at the information involved in the case in a variety of ways and preparing and testing strategies as well as determining where additional work may be required on a case. In addition, a lawyer could determine the strengths and weaknesses of a case and the role that individual witnesses will play in developing a case.

Law firms need to recognize that there is great value in identifying key information and associating it with other information and that a broad-based approach can be much more useful than a method that attempts to implement hundreds or even thousands of rules to create a trial strategy.

B. Client Relationship Management. A highly important area in knowledge management is customer relationship management (”CRM”). CRM is simply a method of gathering, associating and using in an efficient manner information that you have about customers. In many law firms, there are countless examples of lawyers trying to cultivate a potential client only to find later that that potential client was a college roommate of someone else at the firm. Where information about clients is not readily available, lawyers working for a long-term firm client for the first time can easily make mistakes, such as e-mailing clients who have demanded that information only be faxed to them or Fedexing copies to clients who only want e-mail copies. The holy grail of CRM in law firms is to promote the cross-selling of business to existing clients. This area is an especially fertile one for potential knowledge management and artificial intelligence projects.

C. Conflict Checking. Conflict checking is an area of difficulty for many law firms, especially as the number of clients increases and as companies enter into more joint ventures and combinations. While traditional databases can be of great assistance, often potential conflicts can only be seen by lawyers who are personally familiar with the relationships between a variety of companies and people. While CRM efforts will have a spillover effect in the area of conflict checking, the application of artificial intelligence specifically to conflict checking holds a great deal of promise.

D. Delivery of Client Services. The most exciting area of potential development for artificial intelligence and knowledge management systems is in the area of actual delivery of legal services to clients. This delivery of services might occur through traditional means or over the Internet. A number of examples of this trend are appearing and a good resource for keeping track of this is the elawyering site at www.elawyering.org. The application of technology to the delivery of legal services is especially attractive in the area of what is sometimes referred to as the “latent market for legal services” or the segment of the market where people cannot afford traditional legal services. From document preparation to delivery of relevant legal information to decision tree approaches to transactions, there is a world of opportunity and law firms are only beginning to tap the potential.

E. Managing Information Overload. Lawyers, like many others, are fighting to gain some degree of control over the overwhelming amount of information they receive on a daily basis. Through the use of intelligent agents and other knowledge management and artificial techniques, it is gradually becoming possible to manage that flow of information. Techniques, such as creating daily electronic newspapers, personalized resources, and “push” technologies to deliver specific information, updates and other information of interest can all be highly effective with very tangible benefits. “Personal knowledge management” tools give the ability to harvest and organize information on the web. This area suggests a number of useful, discrete pilot projects that can have a high impact on individual attorneys and develop momentum for other projects.

4. Strategies for Improving the Likelihood of Success of your Projects.

Choose discrete rather than global projects.

Use methods that process existing pools of data rather than require large amounts of upfront coding, organization or tagging.

Identify appropriate tools and get those tools into the hands of the people who will actually use them.

Choose committed, enthusiastic volunteers for pilot projects.

Stay up-to-date about new tools and improvements to existing tools.

Achieve buy-in from top levels of management.

Develop appropriate incentive structures for attorneys participating in projects.

Set goals, supply necessary resources and determine from the beginning a method of measuring success or failure of a project. In part, this involves the ability to answer the two following questions: How will you determine whether a project is successful and who will determine whether it is a successful?

Determine whether a chief knowledge officer level position is required. It is difficult to have success for large projects without such a person.

Stay aware of developments, talk to others involved in successful projects and keep current with initiatives at other firms.

Listen to your clients and try to anticipate their needs as a driving force in your projects.

Maintain a high degree of flexibility and willingness to change direction.

Try to get as thorough an understanding of the information flows and the information cultures within your firm.

Attempt several pilot projects at a time. Diversify your risk.

Be innovative and courageous.

5. Conclusion.

While the past history of knowledge management and artificial intelligence in the legal profession does not show a lot of successes or adoption of these projects, a number of factors, economic and otherwise, are coming into play and suggest that there is light at the end of the tunnel. By being aware of the available tools, the fundamental promise and potential that law firms see in these techniques and being able to deal with the resistance barriers, you improve your likelihood of success. Discrete, high impact pilot projects are a good way to start and build momentum for an evolutionary development of these projects. There are also practical strategies that can further enhance your efforts and open up the promise of knowledge management and artificial intelligence that many people see in the legal profession. Most important, there are others working on similar projects who are willing to share information and provide assistance. The future looks promising.

About The Author

Mitchell is the Director of Microsoft Solutions as OnX Enterprise Solutions.

onx.com

Mitchell.Dubin@onx.com

Web design!

Before a few weeks ago, when I heard those words, they went into
my “other” category!

“Other” people, with “other” educations, with “other” minds –
brilliant minds, unlike mine(!) — were the designers of
webpages.

Certainly NOT me!

But that was before I ran across a simple process that taught
me to do it myself!

This process claimed that I could develop a
website.

They claimed it took “no prior web technical
experience.”

Sounds like so much fluff, doesn’t it?!

But here I am, a few weeks later, a new website (of my own!!),
with 45 pages of content! And more to come! (Here’s the website
I’m talking about http://www.ordinaryrunner.c
om/ so you can see that even you can do it!)

And guess what? It makes money. No, not millions(!) in 3 days,
like a lot of websites claim. But certainly, slowly and
steadily, I’ve built a website that will return profits.

All by following a simple plan, spelled out step by step, that
even I (with a basketball coaching degree, no less!) have been
able to follow. Here’s the plan: (http://www.sitesell.com/
ksb.html/)

I’m still wondering if I’ve really done this.

The best plan for making a website is to write VERY GOOD
content for your visitors.

If you’re just out to make money, to gouge customers, etc., then
you’re going to be smelled out! Web users are savvy!

You’ve got to deliver a superior product about an area that you
know something about, and provide, along with your information,
resources for your readers to use.

They have to feel that they are important… And they
better be important to you! Keep the focus on the
visitor, or they’ll click you off!

The problem is, most people don’t know how to write good content
for web users! (Not to mention they don’t know how to do all the
technical stuff!) And I didn’t either!

I had to learn.

Another thing: How do I get people to come? I mean, it wasn’t
like I could build a store on a busy corner, put out a big
flashing sign (”Eat at Bob’s!!”), and wait for people to show up!

I had no idea how to get people to come to a website!

Lucky for me, I learned this technique as well.

And I can’t believe it, but people are starting to come. At
first only a trickle… but then more and more.

And I had to learn how to get listed with search engines, and
directories. You can’t just expect people to stumble across your
website! They’ve got to find you by finding you when they search!

So these are big issues if you’re going to develop a website!

Unfortunately, they’re tough things to learn on your own! There
are people out there who know these things, but their services
are expensive…

Or, I could have tried to learn it all on my own, the
old-fashioned way, by trial and error… but that would take
hours and hours and hours.

And besides, I wasn’t looking for a way to learn to design a
website anyway!

So here, in a nutshell, is what I’ve learned:

1) I must OVERdeliver, and OVERinform with the
content of my webpages. If there’s no value in my
content, people aren’t going to stick around.

What people are really looking for on the web is
information, and they want to find the information they’re
searching for.

So when they type in a keyword and get a page of fluff that’s
just trying to sell them something, they are immediately turned
off.

But…

When they come to your website, and they find not only the info
they are searching for, but much more… and helpful links to
other valuable websites — Well, they stand up and applaud you!

That creates devoted visitors who return.

2) This kind of content also makes them trust you. You are
credible in their eyes.

3) Then (and ONLY then) will they trust you when you
recommend a product!

And then, with a quick click on a link on your site, they go to
the product or service or information that you want them to
find. And often they respond with the very thing you want — a
purchase!

One last thing: It actually took work on my part to design my
own website. And I’m still learning, and still working!

Promises that you’ll get rich quickly and with no effort are
empty ones!

But writing excellent content works!

And if I did it, I know YOU can!!

As a PR professional, you are there in support for your client and its company. But how much support would you be willing to give to your client? Would you be supportive of all your client’s rants? At most times though, PR experts are becoming to sheepish to act on their own will, thus, to the extent, greatly affecting their work and overall performance as a professional. So essentially, what happens is that bossy clients spoon feed every PR’s action that oftentimes result to unsuccessful PR campaign and drastic reputation of the practitioner towards media people.

Sarcastic, yet at the same time sensibly humorous, Joan Stewart’s shares her thoughts on avoiding this kind of dilemma. She wishes (that) “every publicist or PR person would sign a prenuptual agreement with their client before signing the actual contract”. This contract would ultimately endow a PR pro all the authority over his work as a publicist. This includes a total control over “exact wording of pitches to the media, or the length and wording of press releases”, Stewart added.
If Stewart’s idea would only be valid in the professional world, many PR experts would really be known in their profession as an effective publicist. But sadly, no one can grant this wish and only PR experts themselves would have the ability to change their situation in the corporate arena.

PR Mistakes
Stewart narrated the common mistakes that PR make when they work with their clients:

• They write a short, compelling pitch that, later, the client waters down and orders them not to change. The pitch, instead of catching the media’s attention, simply massages the client’s ego. The PR person does as told, and looks foolish.

• They write a long, rambling press release that includes the obligatory B.S. quote from a client high in the release. The quote adds nothing, and makes the client sound pompous and self-promotional.

• They let the client badger them into turning down invitations to appear in top-tier media, after the publicist has worked tirelessly to secure the placement. Clients sometimes tell the publicist at the beginning of a publicity campaign that they want national publicity. Then for whatever reason, they suddenly get cold feet when a paper like USA Today or a program like “Dateline” calls. Rather than convince the client to get media-trained, the publicists cave in, then end up with a 100-pound resentment.

• They make pests out of themselves following up with the media after sending a routine press release. When I worked as an editor, I sometimes got calls from PR people who said: “I hate to bother you, but my boss is insisting I make this phone call. Can you tell me if you got our release and do you know when it will be printed?” If you make calls like that, you probably have no idea how ridiculous you sound. To make matters worse, the media person to whom you are speaking is making a mental note that you’re a real pain to deal with.

These mistakes should have been avoided in the first place, yet, most of them are afraid to speak against their client’s wishes. The reason behind, according to Stewart, is because “too many PR people are so thankful to get the work that they feel beholden to their clients. So they jump every time the clients snap their fingers.”

I have been inspired at this quote from a movie I watched when I was little, which says, “It’s still that little voice that may change the world”. I know that speaking up with your client is hard to do given the fear of losing your job at an instant. But once you have the principle of loving your job and becoming truly a professional, you’ll soon be able to talk to your clients about anything you are planning to do. It is just a matter of negotiating and clearing things with your client, such as the principle of mind your own business.

Stewart’s wish has given us an idea on how to initially start your own “prenuptual agreement” with clients. You have to clearly state that once you are in the job, you are fully in charge of everything concerning their publicity. This contract is not about who’s the boss, but more on building trust and respect between you and your clients. Make that happen. Your little voice, still, is the one that would change your treatment status among corporations.

http://onlinepr.gbwatch.com gives updates on the ins and outs of public relations and marketing within the Internet. It helps various companies of all sizes to become competitive entrepreneurs, and to focus on building good publicity, promotion and higher sales. It aims to teach businessmen to be witty, confident, and strategic in whichever industry they hope to build their dreams upon.