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Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.

From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.

2020 End of Year Results: Light Rider

Given all the unique circumstances of the past year, the media were often focused on critical updates about the state of the pandemic, the national protests around social injustices, or the presidential election. With the media’s attention largely focused on the events over the course of the year, it was more challenging than ever to grasp their attention. As such, we found that the outreach strategies most effective in capturing the media’s attention were announcements and newsjacking pitches.

These two approaches worked particularly well for our client Light Rider, a quantum LiFi company producing top-of-the-line security products.

When we began our partnership with Light Rider we were tasked with announcing the company and its groundbreaking technology. The company is leveraging the power of quantum technology to create secure, unparalleled encryption products with patented technology. Given the use of advanced technology and the dire need for improved cybersecurity, we knew this would be a story of interest to publications focused on quantum technology and cybersecurity. Through our outreach we secured four interviews with industry publications and a technology podcast. In addition to written coverage, an interview led to an invitation to the CEO to participate in an upcoming event on quantum technology.

Following the success of the announcement, we wanted to focus our attention on the unique background and deep expertise of the founder and CEO of Light Rider, Tony Lawrence. There was an opportunity to continue to build credibility with target audiences by demonstrating Tony’s understanding of cybersecurity and experience with the NSA. As such, we kept an eye out for national stories about cybersecurity so that when a story broke, we could offer Tony as an expert source. There were a couple of campaigns in which we identified and contacted reporters covering the news and offered them an opportunity to connect with Tony, a subject matter expert.

This approach was particularly effective when the story about the FireEye and SolarWinds hack broke in December. After contacting reporters covering the news, we worked closely with CNN, CyberScoop and others to provide Tony’s perspective on the situation, how the hack could have happened and how quantum technology could have helped prevent it.

Light Rider has an exciting year ahead with the availability of its products. It’s been a pleasure working with this innovative and hardworking team and we look forward to supporting the company’s goals in 2021!

2020 Light Rider Coverage

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‘The Hill We Climb:’ Using Poetry and Art in Effective Messaging and Communications

The inauguration of a U.S. president is always a momentous occasion, and this year’s inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris was no different. The event included performances from celebrity acts such as Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Garth Brooks. Yet the youngest and lesser renowned artist on the bill wound up stealing the show.

Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate and aspiring presidential candidate, dazzled viewers and those in attendance with the reading of her inauguration poem, “The Hill We Climb.” In just under six minutes, Gorman expressively delivered and danced through each line of her poem, culminating in rousing plaudits and praise from her audience.

It was an incredible feat, as Gorman demonstrated how artistic expression can uniquely convey messaging in ways that are more impactful than conventional means. Gorman’s memorable performance resulted in a round of media interviews and TV spots with CNN, Good Morning America and The Ellen Show, to name a few, as well as a modeling deal with IMG Models.

Such are the marks of an indelible act. Below are a few stirring passages of Gorman’s poem that we found particularly inspirational.

 

Finding Light in Darkness

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast,
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions
of what just is
isn’t always just-ice.

Forging A Union with Purpose

Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.
We the successors of a country and a time
where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes we are far from polished.
Far from pristine.
But that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge a union with purpose,
to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man.

Seeking Harmony, Not Harm

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us,
but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Finding Hope in Turmoil

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true,
that even as we grieved, we grew,
that even as we hurt, we hoped,
that even as we tired, we tried,
that we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat,
but because we will never again sow division.

Daring to Climb

If we’re to live up to our own time,
then victory won’t lie in the blade.
But in all the bridges we’ve made,
that is the promise to glade,
the hill we climb.
If only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it.

Prevailing Over Catastrophe

This is the era of just redemption
we feared at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter.
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert,
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

Our Nation’s Legacy

We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation,
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.

But one thing is certain,
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy,
and change our children’s birthright.
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with.

There is Always Light

When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid,
the new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Art certainly has its place in effective communication. The question is, are we using it to our full advantage? In business and PR settings, this may seem impossible – yet the idea shouldn’t be dismissed. Out-of-the-box methods can inspire innovation. For example, consider how introducing a little art into a standard infographic can help distill a wealth of information into a compelling story that is quickly absorbed.

The poets of the world, like young Amanda Gorman, show us how it can be done. Art can evoke a keen sense of emotion and help communicators convey messages in ways that other methods simply fall short. It is a powerful tool that must not be overlooked.

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Making the Most of the Subject Line

Workplace communication is dominated by email. In 2019, working professionals received 121 emails on average each day in the United States. As email communication continues to grow, how will you write subject lines that stand out amid the noise?

To get a few quick points out of the way, it is important to send emails from an account attached to your name rather than a generic company address. People would rather receive an email from josh@communiquepr.com than no-reply@communiquepr.com. Additionally, be careful using ALL CAPS, excessive exclamation points and question marks. These are often caught in spam filters or received negatively by recipients.

Below I have summarized five key takeaways from Olivia Allen’s 2019 subject-line blog post on HubSpot.

 

Begin the subject line with an action-oriented verb

Think of the subject line as a call to action. It should make clear what the recipient is supposed to get from the rest of the email. Action-oriented verbs and an active voice will clearly convey to the recipient the action they should take.

          Do: Register today for industry webinar
          Don’t: Industry webinar has opened registration

 

Pose a question

The subject line can also act as a hook to bring your reader into the email body. How can you best draw them in? One way to do this is to pose a question. This should be something relevant to your audience that you know is important to them.

          Do: How can a PR strategy improve your sales in 2021?
          Don’t: Communiqué PR has increased sales for their clients

 

Preview information inside the email

The good stuff in any email is in the body. To entice the recipient to open the email, give them a preview of the information to come. Offer a breadcrumb of the most engaging or interesting information that you can utilize to lead into the body of your email.

 

Keep it concise

The key to a good subject line is to keep it short and sweet. The main idea should be communicated in fewer than 50 characters to fit within a notification preview. Remove details that will be made available in the email body, use simple words which are easy to digest in a quick scan, and add numbers to the subject line to quickly quantify the impact of the email in a straightforward manner.

 

Whenever possible, add a personal touch

If you can make your recipient feel special, they will be more excited to read your email. When sending emails, address the recipient by name, reference a personal detail you remember or wish them well.

 

These recommendations will help to give your emails a competitive advantage in the email inbox marketplace. Writing the perfect subject line is a learned art that will come with time and practice. The importance of a well-written subject line may be the difference between having your message read or deleted as spam. Taking care to write a strong subject line will lead to better communications for yourself and your organization.

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Supporting Employee Engagement and Wellbeing in 2021

If you run a business or manage employees, you may be accustomed to the evaluations that can estimate how successful your workers are. You analyze people’s productivity, the quality of their work, or qualitative feedback from customers and co-workers to ascertain the value they bring to the company.

However, people don’t work in a vacuum. The environment, including policies and practices implemented by management, has a huge impact on how well employees function and make decisions, as well as if they stick around long enough to offer a return on investment. An unhealthy workplace can cause frustration, anxiety, anger, and other stress-induced behavior patterns, as well as increase the turnover rate and lower productivity.

To ensure that your organization is taking care of the people that spend around 30% of their waking hours working for you, an average of 1,734 hours a year, consider their wellbeing and engagement.

 

What is Wellbeing? 

Employee wellbeing is greater when needs are met and outside stressors are limited. According to Gallup, this means that their daily life and work experiences are fulfilling, their health and safety needs are met, they have meaningful relationships in their lives, they feel financially secure, and they are proud of and actively involved in a community.

Employees with good wellbeing enjoy better performance, lower rates of burnout, better health, are less likely to report feelings of stress, worry, and anxiety, and are typically more loyal to the company. Factors within a company’s control that affect employee wellbeing include if they’re being paid enough to live comfortably, if they have protections against getting sick and the resources to get better, if they have a work/life balance they can accept, and if management supports their healthy relationships with coworkers and addresses and prevents incidents of harassment and abuse.

 

What is Engagement?

Employee engagement is a way to measure how supported and valued an employee feels, often tying directly to performance outcomes including productivity, profitability and retention. Gallup identifies 12 elements of employee engagement that predict high team performance, including having set expectations and adequate resources, receiving regular praise and feedback, having a connection to the work and the company’s mission, making an impact at work, and having opportunities to learn and grow, among others.

Employees with good engagement are more productive and profitable and less likely to leave the organization, leading to stronger, long-lasting teams. The factors that affect employee wellbeing can vary and should be tailored to each employee, but company leadership should prioritize the integration of engagement efforts into the company’s culture.

 

Lessons from 2020 

The mass departure from offices in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic caused many people to work remotely for the first time. The increased sample size and mandatory nature of this transition, preventing self-selection bias, allowed for Gallup researchers to draw more objective conclusions about the effects that working remotely has on employees’ wellbeing and engagement and the different effects experienced by those who are working onsite. These conclusions are related in several ways to the age of respondents.

Some key takeaways include:

  • Fewer onsite workers report high levels of wellbeing, but the difference is more pronounced for younger workers. Approximately the same percentage of Baby Boomers working onsite and remotely were thriving (57% onsite and 58% remote), but the divide was greater for Gen X (55% onsite and 59% remote) and Millennials (47% onsite and 54% remote).
  • Remote workers report markedly more feelings of stress, anxiety and worry. This was especially pronounced in Millennials.
  • In general, remote work is more engaging than onsite work. Engagement for onsite Millennials is low (30%), but remote Millennials have the highest recorded engagement Gallup had ever recorded from Millennials (41%). For both Gen X and Baby Boomers, 38% of remote workers were engaged in their work, just higher than the 33% of onsite Gen Xers and 35% of onsite Baby Boomers.

 

You may have noticed that, overall, younger workers have a lower rate of wellbeing and engagement. The advantage Baby Boomers have with employee engagement and wellbeing has to do with the greater opportunity they have had throughout their careers to establish financial and professional stability, as well as find a manager and position that engages them. These elements often come with time, with an added factor of luck and circumstance, but it’s important for managers to recognize the probability that Millennials don’t have the safety net that some older workers have been able to build.

To set employees up for success, we can learn from the differences found in remote and onsite workers. Below are some ideas to improve employee wellbeing and engagement that will help soothe employees’ worries, lesson stressors by offering a safety net, strengthen the bonds of your team, and allow them to focus on their work.

 

Ideas to Improve Employee Wellbeing

  • Promote a healthy work/life balance. This includes limiting mandatory overtime and on-call time, and offering PTO and encouraging employees to take it.
  • Pay your employees enough they can afford to pay for daily expenses and save for an emergency without taking a second job, which can pull energy away from their work at your organization.
  • Offer good healthcare that allows employees to access preventative medicine, emergency care and mental health resources.
  • Support healthy relationships between coworkers by setting up events for team bonding. Here’s what’s worked for our team while we’ve been working remotely.
  • Defend your employees from harassment and abuse by acting immediately if transgressions occur. For more on this, check out the training programs offered by Kantola.

 

Ideas to Improve Employee Engagement

  • Ensure employees have all the resources they need to do their jobs.
  • Focus on clearly communicating expectations. Identify responsibilities, processes, and the standard you expect from their work as often as needed.
  • Try to speak with each of your direct reports regularly. Especially in remote work situations, factor in some unstructured time to connect with employees on a more personal level, something you might have done by the office watercooler.
  • Offer methods for growth, learning and advancement. The process of continuous development can be more valuable to a career than a single promotion, focusing effort on cultivating talents and strengths that will differentiate employees as they advance their careers.
  • Offer plenty of public praise and private feedback. Create a recognition-rich culture and provide constructive and motivating advice to employees.
  • Create situations where your employees can get to know each other and form personal friendships.
  • Focus on improving your management style and don’t micro-manage, ignore feedback, or dismiss the opinions of your employees. Here are some management styles to aim for, as well as some to avoid.
  • Communicate the impact that your employees’ work makes and align the missions of the company with employees’ roles and daily tasks.

 

How is your organization prioritizing employees’ wellbeing and engagement?

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2020 Year-End Results: Tideworks Technology

2020 was unique in many ways, but one aspect that remained constant was the level of uncertainty facing nearly every aspect of life. The impacts of this past year’s events will affect how individuals and business leaders approach planning and decision making for years to come.

The global pandemic touched nearly every industry and the commercial shipping sector was no exception. Like many companies, our long-term client, Tideworks Technology (Tideworks) had to reassess strategies in place and adjust plans to ensure the team could continue providing terminal operators with the solutions they need to keep the supply chain moving.

In 2020, Tideworks rolled out a new terminal operating system (TOS) solution, Mainsail 10, and worked with customers around the world to begin deployment of the marine solution. As a cloud-capable tool, Mainsail 10 provides terminal operators with real-time access to and management of data to improve decision making and increase the flow of cargo through the terminal, while also reducing costs. Uptime is always critical at the terminal, but the pressures to maximize vessel capacity and productivity at the terminal, made a solution that offers increased efficiency even more of a necessity.

One way the company helped enable efficiency and agility for its customers when rolling out the new Mainsail 10, was through remote deployments and trainings of the solution. Tideworks made the necessary investments to provide customers with the same level of support and service they would receive if the team were on the ground at the terminal. A couple notable remote go-lives of Mainsail 10 were the deployments at Manzanillo International Terminal (MIT) in Panama and at TOTE’s Jacksonville terminal.

In addition to the launch of Mainsail 10 in 2020, Tideworks announced its joint venture with Brenock Technology (Brenock), a provider of software applications and consulting services for multiple industries, including the cruise sector. Tideworks also continued the expansion of its intermodal presence following the launch of its new Intermodal Division – announced in 2019, with the announcement of Genesee & Wyoming selecting the company as its intermodal solutions provider for its UK rail and container terminal network. 

Throughout the year, we had the opportunity to announce these exciting milestones and more. As a result of media outreach on behalf of Tideworks, we secured 77 articles in 2020, a 54-percent increase from 2019. Below is a snapshot of the coverage secured in 2020.

 

Q1 2020 – Intermodal expansion

 

Q2 2020 – Supporting industry growth 

 

Q3 2020 – Rolling out Mainsail 10

 

Q4 2020 – Navigating remote go-lives and increasing crew engagement

 

In 2021, we are excited to drive awareness around Tideworks’ continued momentum and the role they are playing to improve productivity in the supply chain.

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Thriving When Nothing Feels Normal

At the end of the year I saw numerous social media posts about being ready to say goodbye to 2020 and the events of the past year and welcoming 2021. Yet within days, it became evident the change of the calendar was not going to miraculously solve the variety of fundamental issues we are facing – including the global pandemic, racial inequities and injustice, political discord, economic instability, and so much more.

We’ve been operating in a survival mode of sorts – just managing through until things return to “normal.” However, the normal we recall is not likely to return anytime soon. Concurrently, the deluge of breaking news is overwhelming and distracting, yet important and relevant. So how do we move into a sustainable mode of operations, reset expectations, and adapt to the current climate?

Below are some tips for embracing today’s realities and minimizing stress.

 

Compartmentalize

An article in the Wall Street Journal shared how people have created fake commute routines while working from home to differentiate the start and the end of their work days. An excerpt from the article illustrates the approach:

“Ms. Hein, now a veteran of the fake commute, has her coffee, puts on “real clothes” and then does one 15-minute loop around the block before getting to her desk by 9 a.m.

“The day goes better if I walk around the block before being ‘at work,’” she said. “It’s almost like a different persona you have in each place.”

It can be helpful to find ways to establish a start time and an end time to the workday while working from home. Without defining the start or end of your workday, one can bleed into the other. This can lead to burnout. It is important to maintain work-life balance.

 

Limit News Consumption

Today’s news (e.g., political events, COVID infection/death rates, civil unrest) can create anxiety and perpetuate a sense of uncertainty. While it is important to be informed, experts advise limiting news consumption. This can be challenging given the constant access and exposure to news via our mobile devices, alerts and social media. Consider these tips from VeryWellMind to help strike a healthy balance.

 

Manage Distractions

Part of the reality of the current climate is a seemingly endless variety of distractions – kids needing help with remote schooling, laundry, deliveries, social media alerts, and on and on. WIRED published some tips in its article “How to hack your concentration when you’re working from home.” One tip included in the article is the Pomodoro Technique. With the technique, you identify a project you want to complete, you set the timer for 25 minutes and work on the task until the timer rings. When the timer rings you put a check mark on the activity and take a short break. After four Pomodoros, you take a longer break. It’s a great way to focus on a project in chunks, helping to break up large projects making them more accessible. My daughter learned this technique in middle school, and it has proved effective for her, my colleagues and me.

 

The uncertainties and turmoil of 2020 are likely to continue through 2021. Remote working is also likely to remain the norm – when feasible. Instead of staying in survival mode, let’s identify ways we can thrive despite these challenges.  

What are some of the ways you are embracing the new normal, combatting distractions, and thriving in 2021?

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