Jeff Stephens
exploring the confluence of energy, water, and people. More →
Battling Communication Schizophrenia
In the rush to capitalize on purchasers’ alleged desire for green products and services, companies are ‘shoe-horning’ environmental themes in to all of their communications. Companies are quick to add a “Sustainability” section to their website thinking that changes to a site’s main navigation must demonstrate true commitment to the environment. A newsletter article about [...]
Word Clouds
Word clouds are visual depictions of a site's keywords or tags. They give a quick snapshot of a site's content because greater prominence is given to words that appear more frequently. They can be useful on news sites, competitor sites, or individual documents. Using a free service like Wordle, users can enter an RSS feed [...]
Communicating Climate Change
The July/August 2008 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review examines climate change and asserts that "media coverage of climate change is at a crossroads." Essentially, the article is saying that we're [moving] "beyond the science of global warming into the broader arena of what governments, entrepeneurs, and ordinary citizens are doing about it." Hence… "Journalists [...]
Combating ‘Green Noise’
A recent article by Alex Williams of the NYTimes, discussed how consumers are feeling overwhelmed with the "urgent, sometimes vexing or even contradictory information played at too high a volume for too long" about environmental issues. For businesses and organizations wondering how best to overcome this consumer fatigue, I suggest that they reexamine and [...]
PR Advice from Justice Antonin Scalia
There's always much debate within certain companies about whether to talk with the press. Why risk getting misquoted or facilitating a story that from the onset is slanted to portray the company unfavorably. Recently, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, and provided some excellent PR advice. "The reality [...]
Press Perspective
Information overload. That's the best way to describe my trip to the EcoCity World Summit in San Francisco as a member of the press. As I write for Jetson Green, a green building blog, I was able to secure a press pass thanks to help from Amy Senn who handles media relations for Sensible City, [...]
Website Optimization for PR Value
There's value in preparing regular announcements about company activities and feeding them on to the web via online newswire services like PRWeb to increase search engine ranking. As customers, prospects, potential hires, and reporters seek out 'background' information about your company, search engines can provide a virtual storehouse of information. Special emphasis is added because [...]
Blogging in 140 Characters or Less
One of the biggest (legitimate) concerns about business blogging is the time commitment. "I'm already overextended, how can I possibly start writing meaningful posts that discuss the future of my industry? Rest assured, you don't need to solve the world's problems with your blog; you just need to initiate a conversation that resonates with your [...]
38% Sick of Green PR
But, according to a new study by Allianz Global Investors, 62% think "it's great that companies are publicly making statements about 'going green'." They're not only saying it's great but investing in those types of companies too. According to the study, investors view the environment as a major long-term investing opportunity. "Of the 1,003 investors [...]
Do Green Blogs Matter?
That's the important question for green building companies and pr professionals. What exactly is the impact that social media and blogs are having on traditional news delivery? Well, according to a recent survey of US journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom group, blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability [...]
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