National Day of Unplugging 3/3

by Personal Interest

The average daily volume of media content consumed by an American during 2022 (per Oberlo) was 494 minutes, or about 8.5 hours. So, given the time we spend sleeping, that means roughly half of our waking hours involve media consumption. It’s even harder when screen time is a large part of your typical workday. Each year, National Day of Unplugging is celebrated on the first Friday in March, and encourages people to step away from their digital devices and unplug for a 24 hour period. Let’s talk about ways we find ourselves stuck on screens, and how to unplug.

My iPhone indicates my own daily screen time averages about 6 hours and 46 minutes. That’s no surprise, since I use my phone for nearly everything, including:

  • Listening to music
  • Meditation apps
  • Social media
  • Texting and calling family / friends
  • Taking photos
  • Accessing Duolingo
  • GPS support while driving
  • As an alarm clock

 

Of course, there’s also my Apple watch … and my laptop for the office … and my personal laptop at home.

 

Because I work as a social media specialist, all this online time is both normal and necessary, since I need to keep up with best practices and the latest trends. But, is it healthy for me in the long run? Is all this time spent consuming media content healthy for any of us?

 

One benefit of my particular profession is that I have access to all manner of technology for actually reducing the time I interact with a screen. For example, I can automatically schedule social media content, and I don’t need to conduct a lengthy search to determine the most effective time of day for posting. Technology also makes it remarkably easy for me to locate media coverage of our clients and to find contact information for journalists. In other words, technology actually helps to reduce the time I must spend consuming and processing media.

 

There’s also lots to be said about how to enjoy workday breaks without involving your phone or laptop.  On my breaks, I like to:

  • Walk outside
  • Read books
  • Play pool (the office building in which we’re located has a terrific lounge area)
  • Write poetry or new song lyrics

 

These are some of the fun things I do that help me avoid unnecessarily using my phone. I mean, it’s not always beneficial to be aimlessly scrolling through TikTok (although, I must admit, I really do enjoy TikTok).

 

So, on this National Unplugging Day, what’s one activity you could undertake that wouldn’t require use of your phone or laptop?

 

How to Work Comfortably at Home While Sick

by Community AwarenessPersonal InterestUncategorized

After falling ill about a week into January, I learned a thing or two about working remotely in the midst of an awful cold. I don’t know precisely what I had, but it featured body aches, sweats, chills, coughing, a stuffy nose, and pretty much everything in between. Yet, I still managed to get a good bit of work done from the comfort of my bed and couch.

 

The following are a few tips. Maybe they’ll help you the next time germs get the better of you.

 

  1. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t be entirely productive. Nobody plans to become sick. And sometimes, illness arrives during a big client event or when a major project is due. One of the benefits of working for an agency is that there are typically extra hands on deck to assist when you’re just too sick to function.
  2. Take extra breaks, whenever needed. Sometimes, you’re simply too worn down to continue working. If this is the case, brew a cup of tea and even consider a power nap. Your output can only be as good as how alert and healthy you feel.
  3. Stay in communication with your colleagues. Even if you’re a bit groggy, seek out updates from your colleagues. This will help you continue to move items off your plate, and they’ll likely appreciate the extra effort you’re putting in.
  4. If possible, get some fresh air via a 5-minute walk around the neighborhood. If you’re sharing the outdoor space with others, be responsible and wear a mask. Also, be sure to take appropriate vitamins/supplements to help in the battle against your illness.
  5. Speed your recovery up by getting plenty of rest both day and night. Working remotely has its perks, but there’s definitely something to be said for the daily routine at the office. So, make sure you rest as much as your body demands – it’ll help you recover and get back to normal as quickly as possible.

 

It used to be that even if you were horribly sick, you’d pushed yourself to go to the office just to show your dedication and push through. Now, it’s more important to protect all your coworkers and not spread germs by working remotely, if you can.

Customer Service: Similar Hats in a Different Environment

by Personal Interest

This year, I was honored to be selected to serve as a Poll Worker/Election Official in November’s general election.

Being a poll worker allowed me to put my customer service skills as an Advertising Account Manager to good use when assisting voters coming in and out of the precinct. It was challenging work that took many hours of in-person and on-line training, but so worth the effort to use my current skill sets in a different environment.

In my current position at SCG, I need to have strong multi-tasking and communication skills in order to work with team members, clients and vendors.  Since a poll worker handles all aspects of the voting process from precinct set-up, voter check-in, record updates, ballot distribution, and even passing out those little “thank you for voting” stickers, my skills at SCG helped considerably.

It was great to see individuals from every generation casting their votes. We had a first-time voter that got our applause when his dad brought him to vote for the first time. The son was a bit embarrassed, but our team was impressed! We also had several individuals who required assistance; they were determined to get through the check-in process and cast their ballot! Many new citizens were excited to be voting for the very first time! Even a few quick rainstorms didn’t stop people from lining up at our door.

It was a very long 14+ hour day. But when you finally clock-out and you tear down tables and pack-up bins, you feel like you’ve accomplished something very important. I enjoyed doing my part while using old skills and learning new ones. I hope to do it again for the next election(s).

(Although I’m employed full-time with SCG, I’m glad they give me the ability to take a day off in order to use my skills in a different environment. Thanks, SCG!)

World Mental Health Day (My Story)

by Personal Interest

World Mental Health Day is an international day for global mental health education, awareness, and advocacy against social stigma.

This is my story.

Since I was 15, I’ve been in and out of counseling. My anxiety disorder was diagnosed when I was a high school freshman, and that was when I realized something was wrong. Or, at least, that I needed help reshaping the way I think about the world so I could begin to feel better.

Anxiety can be extremely debilitating, with constant worrying about things that might never even happen. This often stems from some type of untreated trauma. For a long while, I thought I’d be struggling with anxiety forever. I simply didn’t have a support system that told me it was okay to process my feelings and to sometimes step back from whatever I was doing just to consider how to deal with things.

I’m 23 now, and I’ve worked hard to learn how to calm my anxiety disorder and live life to the fullest. It took years, and I lived through a lot of things that contributed to changing how I thought. It was often a struggle, from waiting until I was 19 to get my driver’s license, to a lack of support related to my college studies and music career. But in the end, anxiety didn’t hold me back – I found a way to push forward. Anxiety became my motivation – to graduate and then find an employer that prioritizes a healthy work/life balance and embraces the importance of mental health awareness.

When I arrive at the office, I know I can step away when needed to take what I call my “daily afternoon walks.” This helps me recharge and recenter, and when I’m back at my desk, everything’s still there and everything will get done on time. We also have many other mental wellness activities in our lounge space including yoga classes and an art studio. This encourages our team to take a step back from work when the day gets too stressful. Beyond work – in all aspects of day-to-day life – periodic mental health breaks don’t make you lazy. Instead, they’re an excellent tool for remaining calm, focused, and centered. I encourage anyone reading this to not hesitate to reach out when you need help… even if it means stepping back from work until you can be in the right mental health space. There are many resources to connect with including the newly founded 988 suicide hotline. Please, take care of yourself. Sometimes the work CAN wait.

 

Happy World Mental Health Day! 

Lupe Dragon

The Public Relations Side of Music

by AdvertisingPersonal InterestPublic Relations

Lupe DragonA lot of musicians think that blogs and online publications are an “outdated” way of finding music, but I tend to disagree with that. As a PR professional and a musician myself, I use public relations to help boost engagement with potential fans. When you google my name, you see tons of interviews and reviews of my music from the past four years. These are in the form of podcasts, news coverage, blog posts, and social media content. It’s what we call being “social proof.”

Social proof is “the idea that consumers will adapt their behavior according to what other people are doing.”

Here are some key examples of how you can attain “social proof.”

  1. Expert’s stamp of approval
  2. Celebrity endorsement
  3. User testimonials
  4. Social media shares
  5. Earned media (i.e., news coverage)

Check out this article for more information on examples of social proof. 

A musician without public relations is the same as an author without an agent – an absolute nobody. If the general public doesn’t know you exist, how do you expect to get results?

In 2022, musicians need to be both talented and business savvy. It’s a harsh reality, but if you put even half as much effort into your marketing and PR as you do into your next single, you will be making it easier for yourself to branch out to a broader audience. That’s the reward you’re looking for.

A Poet on National Poetry Month

by Personal InterestPublic Relations

Since way back in 1987, I’ve earned a living as a public relations professional. I was a reporter before then, and wrote upward of a thousand newspaper articles. I’ve been an absolute Facebook addict for the past 13 years, and I’ve penned a few freelance magazine pieces. I’ve dabbled in writing fiction, with an emphasis on novels and screenplays, I’ve been known to occasionally slap acrylics on a canvas, and I’m an inveterate consumer of podcasts.

In essence, I’m a communicator. I’m naturally inclined to convey and consume information, whether in the form of facts or feelings. It’s what I do for a career and it’s how I prefer to spend my spare time.

This said, I’ve long been convinced that the purest, most potent form of written communication is poetry. It’s this perspective that makes me an appropriate author for our agency’s latest blog, since April happens to be National Poetry Month.

Both as a reader and writer, I’ve been invested in poems since I was quite young. And in the time necessary for me to transform from student to practitioner of the art, my personal style took shape. I dispensed almost completely with rhymes, but embraced alliteration. Never comfortable with lines, and less so with stanzas, I’ve come to employ a breathless, stream-of-consciousness style that to an inflexible English professor might seem suspiciously like a run-on sentence.

Over time, I’ve enjoyed some entirely non-financial success, with my poetry selected for inclusion in a variety of literary publications. One of these (“Concordance of Color,” from the spring 2015 edition of Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine) follows here, because it seems awkward to discuss creating poems without also sharing a sample.

As if God spent an hour fingerpainting with white and black tempera, streaking November’s sky in unsettled grays, mostly dull, with a whisper of threat, and walking below I watch the drab shades run, seeping down on trees, across lawns, transforming unremarkable structures into mansions of film noir moodiness, absent all hues, save for you — solely immune to this visual desolation — sauntering in a concordance of color, of crimsons, blues, yellows, drifting along, and I’m induced to follow, enthralled by your conspicuous magic.

There’s a kinship between writing poetry and crafting fine furniture, sculpting with clay, or tinkering with an engine. For me, words are the wood or clay; punctuation the wrench set or lathe. And with any of these creative endeavors, nuance determines excellence. Many a word may be suitable to convey meaning, just as any board can become a shelf. But whether with word or board, there’s only one perfect fit.

What captivates me is the pursuit of the ideal word or phrase – the delicate, precise construction that can stir darkness or light in a reader’s heart. Communication is my compulsion, and there are things only poetry can express.

Celebrating Irish Heritage Month

by Personal InterestSCG News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My husband is Irish. His grandparents were both born and raised in Ireland; his father born in Ireland before immigrating to America at a very young age.  So, of course, he has always been interested in his Irish roots.

To celebrate our wedding anniversary, we planned a 2-week trip to Ireland to dig deeper into my husband’s ancestry.  We finally decided on a bus coach tour to see all the sites starting in Dublin before traveling south along the east coast. We continued southwest along the south coast, north along the west coast and then inland to Ennis, where we spent our remaining days on our own tour of discovery.

Dublin was …. well, Dublin.  A fast-moving, busy city that was very similar to other large cities in the world — traffic, construction, crime and tourists!  But then traveling through the small villages of Ireland is where it all changed.  The scenery, the homes, the agriculture…simply beautiful.  I was slowly beginning to relax.

No ringing cell phones, no one with their nose to a tablet or laptop.  People were actually talking to each other at restaurants, shops and pubs – even on the streets! Television at the hotels was very basic and mostly limited to politics in the U.S.!

We didn’t bring a cell phone, tablet or laptop.  There wasn’t even a public computer in the hotels.  We had to talk and listen to people and we absolutely loved it!  I had forgotten what it was to like to really talk to people; to hear a voice instead of receiving a text, etc.  We found information we needed by talking to local residents, not by a Google search or Mapquest app!

 

 

By hiring a driver for the day, we were able to explore very small towns in the middle of nowhere.  Churches, cemeteries, castles, all just waiting to be enjoyed.  My husband was able to see and set foot on property owned by long- gone relatives.  Although I was just “along for the ride”, I found myself intrigued by Ireland’s history, food, people and scenery.

We’ve always celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with corned beef and cabbage (and of course, a Guinness and soda bread with Kerrygold butter!)  But knowing we were actually IN Ireland makes the meal so much more enjoyable each and every year.  This was definitely a once in a lifetime vacation and one I’ll never forget.  Hope to get back there ASAP.

 

Panic Rules (1600 x 800 px) (1)

DOES YOUR ORGANIZATION HAVE PANIC RULES?

by Personal InterestPublic Relations
11 Rules for Making Better Decisions and Alleviating Panic in the Ranks

We live in fast-paced, uncertain, complex, polarized times … which frequently require decision-making under challenging circumstances. Regardless of the situation at hand – and whether it’s mundane, or truly life-or-death – how one responds is under that individual’s control.

 

As a public relations firm with more than 60 years of experience dealing with crisis and conflict in a wide variety of industries and sectors, we at SCG Advertising + Public Relations are convinced every organization needs a process for complex decision-making and dealing with “moments of truth.”  Does your group have panic rules?

 

The NFL’s Los Angeles Rams do, and they use them to guide on- and off-the-field decision-making. Team General Manager Les Snead recently explained panic rules during an interview on the Daily Stoic podcast. Snead based the rules in question on Stoicism, a school of philosophy that originated in ancient Greece and Rome. It’s a life philosophy that seeks to maximize positive emotions, reduce negative emotion, and help individuals to hone character virtues. Podcaster, author, and speaker Ryan Holiday has recently shone new light on Stoicism via his Daily Stoic brand.

 

So, from the Stoics, here are 11 basic panic rules.

ANTCIPATE

“The man who has anticipated the coming of troubles takes away their power when they arrive.” – Seneca

DON’T FEAR CHANGE

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor Frankl

CHALLENGE IS OPPORTUNITY

“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.” – Seneca

WHEN IN DOUBT, DO THE RIGHT THING

“If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it.” – Marcus Aurelius

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS

“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.” – Epictetus

FIND CALM, TAKE PAUSE, BREATHE

“It is essential that we not respond impulsively… take a moment before reacting and you find it easier to maintain control.” — Epictetus

STAY FOCUSED

“He who is everywhere is nowhere.” – Seneca

BE COURAGEOUS

“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.” – Marcus Aurelius

PREPARE TO BE BOLD  

“More is lost by indecision than wrong decision. Indecision is the thief of opportunity.”— Cicero

INACTION CAN BE THE BEST ACTION

“You always own the option of having no opinion.” – Marcus Aurelius

SEEK COUNSEL, ASK FOR HELP

“Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So what? – Marcus Aurelius

 

The concept of panic rules goes well beyond simply navigating conflict. It provides a reliable framework for addressing key business, ethical, and social issues. As Stoic philosopher Cicero said, “Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.”

Click here for a helpful graphic of the panic rules.

 

social media afterlife

Social Media in the Afterlife?

by Personal InterestSocial MediaUncategorized

social media afterlifeWhile we’re all adjusting to a new normal of remote work and virtual classrooms during the COVID pandemic, social media can be an important connection to family and friends. A Harris Poll conducted between late March and early May found that between 46% and 51% of US adults were using social media more since the outbreak began.

2020 has been a tough year for all of us, and not any easier with the untimely loss of friends and colleagues. Imagine my surprise when receiving status updates for the recently departed.  Thirty million Facebook users died in the first 8 years of its existence and statisticians tell us that the dead will soon outnumber the living on Facebook according to this article on loop.com.

This has become such a big issue that we now have the FADA (Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act) which was set in place to extend the traditional power of a fiduciary to manage tangible property to include management of digital assets. So far, 25 states have enacted some version of FADA.

We should all take basic steps to get our digital affairs in order:

  • Make sure you have computer passwords, phone passcodes, etc. safely stored and accessible to trusted family/friends.
  • Have online usernames and passwords in a secure location for a trusted contact/executor. At a minimum, make sure they are written down in a safe place but do consider a reputable password manager software. Consider Roboform, 1Password, Lastpass. Your unique situation can determine if a free solution works or you need something more robust in a paid subscription.
  • Establish a legacy contact on Facebook and other sites that allow it. A legacy contact can make decisions about memorializing your profile, how to respond to tributes, or to request removal of the profile.
  • Include a ‘digital estate plan’ with your will and power of attorney.

COVID also left 40 million Americans unemployed at least temporarily. As those job seekers look for new opportunities, many turn to LinkedIn for networking. This can be more difficult with many outdated profiles on LinkedIn. I’ve seen many examples of people who start fresh when leaving one employer. That may be because a profile was “hacked” or they didn’t want to be identified with a bad experience, or simple oversight. These dormant profiles may seem like no big deal, but I would worry about them being bait for hackers who know you aren’t paying attention. If you don’t want to update/maintain a profile from a previous employer, you can delete/deactivate. Here’s a link to instructions on how to do that, even if you don’t have access to the original email account or password. It’s a little dated but should help.

I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. It’s supposed to be quite eye-opening to concepts of technology addiction, social engineering, and surveillance capitalism. Yowza! If you’ve seen it, share some feedback. I will be watching in the next few days and look forward to the discussion.

Here are a few links if you’d like to research further:

https://beyond.life/help-centre/admin-legal/social-media-accounts-loved-one-dies/

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/get-your-digital-accounts-ready-in-case-of-death/

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-prepare-your-digital-life-for-your-death

 

 

BREAKING — STUDY SAYS PEOPLE CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH

by Community AwarenessPersonal InterestPublic Relations

Truth builds TrustIt’s a legendary scene. One famous actor shouts, “I want the truth!” The other snaps back, “You can’t handle the truth!“

 

It’s cinematic genius, and also depicts one of the greatest challenges of communicating during a crisis – including our current public health emergency.  How much truth – and what degree of uncertainty — can the public handle?

 

According to a just-released study from the University of Cambridge, uncertainty about facts can be reported without damaging public trust. These results come at a critical time as leaders, scientists, and professional communicators wrestle with data uncertainty, risk, and disinformation associated with the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Communicators and leaders of various organizations often assume that communicating uncertainty will undermine trust. Now, research has found that uncertainty related to key facts and figures can be communicated in a manner that maintains public trust in information and its source. And this is true even related to contentious issues. Researchers hope the study encourages communicators as well as leaders to be bolder in reporting uncertainty.

 

Study co-author Sander van der Linden, director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, says that “including an indication of its uncertainty provides the public with better information. In an era of fake news that might help foster trust.”

 

As an example, the researchers got the best results when a figure was flagged as an estimate and was accompanied by the numerical range from which it had been derived. For example:“…the unemployment rate rose to an estimated 3.9% (between 3.7%-4.1%).”

 

This study adds to  – and supports — considerable research on the topic of trust and credibility.

 

Given the current landscape, and the support of research, Edward R. Murrow’s words ring more true than ever. “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.”

 

# # #

 

SCG Related Information and Services We Offer:

Media Training

Crisis Communications