Holiday Hiatus

The ELISE communications headquarters is winding down now, so that we can all take time to spend the holiday season with our friends and family and get some respite for what will be a busy spring in 2010. If you need to reach any of us, you’ll still be able to get us via e-mail and cell—but the blog won’t be updated until after the holidays.

Until then, happy holidays to you and yours. We’re very thankful for a productive year at ELISE and are just now welcoming several new clients to our growing list! We’ll be back in two weeks with more updates on our clients; thoughts on the changing face of journalism; and PR and social media best practices. Can’t take the suspense? You can always peruse our archives (on your left).

Thanks to our friends and clients for a fantastic 2009, against all odds. We’ll see you next year!*

*In the meanwhile, have a little extra holiday cheer here.

ELISE Welcomes New Client: Kirk Boyd, Human Rights Advocate

At ELISE, we are proud to work with clients who do their part to support social innovation, entrepreneurship and education. And, just in time for Human Rights Day, we are excited to announce our new client, author Kirk Boyd and his book, 2048: Humanity’s Agreement to Live Together (April 2010; Berrett-Koehler Publishers).

The book furthers the ongoing international social movement started by Eleanor Roosevelt and others with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by explaining how the rights in this document can be made actionable in the courts of all countries. The plan in the book is supported by the 2048 Project at the U.C. Berkeley Law School. The Project—an affiliation of educational institutions, human rights centers, non-governmental organizations, businesses and foundations—is collaborating to educate students and the public about the evolution of human rights. If it sounds very much like the familiar saying “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” that would make sense because Boyd, the Executive Director of the 2048 Project and a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, has been inspired by Thomas Jefferson, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and more recently, the author of Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson.

The 2048 Project emphasizes our shared humanity, and looks to provide a process to draft an optimal international framework for enacting human rights that can be in place by the year 2048, the 100th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Welcome, Boyd, to ELISE and thank you for providing us with a guidebook on how we can participate in creating a more just society.

Not Just Small Talk These Days

“Lovely weather we are having today, don’t you think?”

Okay, unless you enjoy the cold it might be a bit chillier than normal in Philadelphia.  But the weather and climate are not just small talk topics these days.

Starting yesterday until December 18, 2009, the United States, along with nearly 200 other nations, will be discussing the issue of climate change in a global meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Political officials of the represented nations are set to discuss the most crucial issues surrounding the environment.   Tom Zeller of The New York Times states: “Among the most difficult hurdles, many participants acknowledged throughout the day (Monday), are achieving adequate cuts in greenhouse gas emissions—particularly from big polluters like the United States and China.”  Zeller also noted that in days leading up to the global meetings many of the big polluters such as the U.S., China, India, etc. announced new emissions goals.  According to some officials and participants, those projected emissions targets were arguably too low to prevent temperatures from swelling more in the future.

In efforts to promote climate awareness, GreenLaces (an ELISE friend) sent Caitlin Fisher from the London School of Economics to be an ambassador at the Copenhagen meetings.  GreenLaces was founded by Natalie Spilger, a professional soccer player (Football, fútbol, footy/footie, etc. depending on your location) for the Chicago Red Stars.  The GreenLaces movement promotes the idea of making promises for a better planet.  They do so by activating the global athletic community to wear green shoe laces in honor of their commitments.  For example, Dhani Jones of the Cincinnati Bengals and formerly of the Philadelphia Eagles, promised to ride his bike to work 50% of the time and get three of his teammates to join him.   According to the GreenLaces Web site, with the help of professional athletes such as Dhani and Natalie, the GreenLaces’ community of on-line promises is saving over 100 tons of carbon dioxide and $5,600 each year.  Over time their ultimate goal is to accumulate one million promises for a better planet.

Mohandas Gandhi once stated: “A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”  Even though many of us do not have the opportunity to attend the Copehagen meetings, everyone of us does have the ability to make and keep a promise to help GreenLaces reach and exceed their ultimate goal.

Having It Your Way…Is It Really That Simple?

Each time it’s my turn on the blog, I like to write about the things I’ve been pondering.

Maybe it’s because I recently began re-reading my sociology text-books, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about popular culture: its roots, its meaning, how it shifts over time. Culture doesn’t change overnight. Shifts are often reflective of historical movements and societal attitudes that have adjusted in kind. However, amidst the ebb and flow of trends and themes in pop culture, one thing is constant: the media is the driving force behind it. Being in public relations, we interact with the media on a daily basis and are acutely aware of its influence.

News, technology, music and movies, we take cues from the media for everything from the latest fashion craze to when we should buy and sell. The media influences our behavior as consumers, and one of its most powerful tools for doing so is advertising, subtly and not–so-subtly woven into commercials, magazines, the fabric of our lives. (I’ll bet you started thinking about cotton. See?) While we in PR certainly work frequently with the media, advertising and marketing are more directly vehicles of media itself.

One trend that has become more noticeable in the last few years is customized marketing. Increasingly, products are hitting the market that are intended for consumers to fit to their personalized preferences, and ad campaigns have followed suit. We have the iPod, Pandora Internet radio and even Build-a-Bear for the younger set of shoppers. The focus is on choice, and having many options to select what resonates with you.

Burger King and Starbucks, two of the most recognizable consumer brands are prime examples of this customized marketing. BK has long encouraged you to “have it your way.” And while standing in line at the latte mecca to fuel up for Black Friday, I read a sign that said: “Your drink should be perfect, every time.” I agree with Starbucks, but the skeptic in me wonders whether this pervasive trend in marketing and advertising is just a clever ruse designed to make us think we’re in control of our purchasing power (when really it’s simply encouraging us to buy more stuff)—or are times a-changing? Are the tables turning in favor of a society that is influencing the media, instead of the other way around? It seems that user generated content and the filters that allow us to search it are the wave of the future.

It is worth acknowledging that America has always been a culture of individuals. From a young age we are encouraged by parents and teachers to “be ourselves” instead of going with the crowd. Is it possible that this trend in advertising is not so much a trend at all, but evidence that the media is bolstering that autonomous American sentiment? Or is it all a clever trick?

Personally, I’m on the fence, but what do you think?

Today Is World AIDS Day

Image Credit: Flickr user Jayel Aheram

For many of us, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are spent in true holiday style. We sing Christmas carols; we brave the over-crowded malls (or we don’t, and we buy everything on Amazon.com); we spend time with our loved ones. Even for those of us who are not religious, the holiday season is a happy time of year that really gives us the opportunity to sit back and be grateful for all that we have—at least in the developed world.

It’s perhaps for that reason that World AIDS day falls right in the middle of the holiday season. The World AIDS Campaign began this annual December 1 tradition in 1988—at a time when AIDS and HIV were greatly misunderstood—to promote education and understanding about the disease. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, World AIDS Day reminds us that there are others out there who are not so fortunate nor as carefree as we. When everything around is decked out in red and green, World AIDS Day asks us to focus, just a little, on the red.

The World AIDS Campaign is not an ELISE client, nor do we work with any AIDS-focused charities. But many of our clients support technology that could help reduce the spread of the virus, and facilitate its diagnosis, in the developing world. The Lemelson Foundation, for instance, granted funds to PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health) to continue their work in developing a female condom that could not only protect women in the developing world from unwanted pregnancies, but also reduce these women’s risks of contracting HIV or another sexually-transmitted disease. A few months ago, the NCIIA awarded top honors at their annual BMEidea competition to NanoLab (formerly Lab-on-a-Stick), a portable diagnostic tool that could allow for early diagnoses of diseases, such as HIV and AIDS, in remote or developing areas that did not have diagnostic lab facilities. And over the summer, the Games for Health Conference in Boston hosted a presentation on Pamoja Mtanni, a videogame about HIV prevention for Kenyan youth.

We are proud to help these amazing projects, and others, gain the notoriety they deserve—on World AIDS Day and every other day of the year.