August 5th, 2010
My mother purchased this plant as a gift for the ELISE office opening in October 2007 in Philadelphia. At the time, it was so small, it barely looked appropriate on the floor, perhaps more appropriate as a desk plant. My mom actually apologized for its size upon handing it to me, but I knew it would grow.
Around that time, we had just signed Paul Polak as a client and were helping him prepare to launch Out of Poverty. The book was focused on market-based approaches and treating individuals at the bottom of the pyramid as customers rather than recipients of charitable donations. We were reading Sachs and Easterly, helping Paul shape his personal image, brand and messaging.
Now, I find myself still looking at the plant daily: it has flourished, consuming most of the floor space under the window. It reminds me of our growth as a marketing and strategic communications practice, and the increasing scale of our client network.
Our clients are focused on social innovation and entrepreneurship, and they include The Lemelson Foundation, the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Games for Health Project. Because of these related social missions, this collaborative knowledge creation generates tremendous leverage. Our choice to focus on this niche has created a valuable knowledge base and network.
We depend on deeply engaged, inspiring clients to continue to help us grow and today we are honored to announce a new client, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE), a network of like-minded social enterprises.
Specifically, ANDE is a non-profit, non-partisan policy program of the Aspen Institute. It is a global network of organizations with a common commitment to build entrepreneurship in the developing world. Since the official launch in March 2009, ANDE has grown to include over 90 organizations, including the Citi Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Shell Foundation and the Acumen Fund.
We welcome them to ELISE and are excited to be working with this organization.
We might just buy a plant to commemorate the occasion!
September 4th, 2009
We continuously ask our clients: what differentiates you from the crowd? Why should people care about your mission, product or service? How do you want your customers and the public in general to respond to you? Why, in a nutshell, are you relevant?
So, it only makes sense that we discuss what differentiates ELISE, and what makes us unique, although we are not going to share all of our “special sauce” right here and now.
(1) Relationships matter to us.
I keep telling family, friends, prospective clients, etc., how fortunate ELISE is during this current economic turmoil. If we hadn’t been cultivating relationships over the course of the past ten years, starting with my first job in communications at the Lemelson-MIT Program , I am not sure if we would still be in business. As companies struggle to pay for healthcare, cover salaries and make a profit, outside marketing and PR are one of those budget line items that often get cut first (tune in next week for my thoughts on that).
We hope that once you know us, and work with us, you will want us around. We try to be “Made to Stick.” We like to be as integrated as possible with clients’ objectives and goals and find that our tactics must reflect this strategy. We prefer to work with clients on long-term contracts (six months or annual) even if we could make more money by recording our hours. ELISE takes this same relationship-based approach with journalists… we don’t view our job as transactional and don’t want any member of the media that we speak with to feel as though they are being pitched. We want to create a dialogue about our clients and hope that the public—including the media—will participate.
(2) We always do our homework.
How many of us have had anxiety dreams where we are unprepared to take an exam or haven’t done our homework? Well, ELISE stops the madness. We are thorough researchers, and the staff is comprised of liberal arts graduates who did a lot of reading and writing throughout their lives. We are naturally curious and this means that when we call a reporter we all but know what they like to eat for breakfast. Being thorough permeates the ELISE corporate culture as well. Every Thursday at 2:00 p.m. we meet to have “coffee talk,” an informal gathering to discuss the changing world of media and new journalists we would like to engage. Also, we invite monthly speakers to provide insight into their industry and share best practices. There is always room to learn more and operate better and faster at ELISE.
(3)Â We have identified a niche industry.
ELISE focuses on innovative products and companies and organizations with a soul. What does that mean? If your primary objective is to make money, we probably don’t want to work with you. Why, you might say? Because we (and others) have found that people and companies solely focused on money, rank and power, fail. ELISE believes in clients that have something insightful to share with society. This could be a groundbreaking event, the publication of a book or a consumer product launch. It could be opening a museum or promoting a mission-driven organization. It might mean executing a public advocacy campaign, setting up a speakers’ bureau or conducting media relations. Our clients take the shape of for-profits, non-profits or even hybrid organizations. The key is this: focus. By focusing on a niche industry—invention and innovation, entrepreneurship, science and technology—we get to work with interesting people doing interesting things. And that makes us relevant.
August 7th, 2009
Even though we live in a world where the majority of our communication takes place through a digital medium, it did not surprise me when Tom McGrath, editor of Philadelphia Magazine, commented over lunch last week that connecting with people in person was essential. We discussed the value of non-verbal cues versus on-line communication. We agreed that there is so much more to learn by seeing and witnessing a person, in their environment rather than seeing them through a screen, in the text of an e-mail or tweet. I smiled. He “goes where the action is.”
This is not the first time I have seen the power of “being there.”
In May 2007, Paul Polak and I hopped a cab together to JFK Airport. We had just met at the opening of the Design for the Other 90% exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. He entertained and charmed the The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and every other reporter I threw his way. And, then in the cab, he popped the question: “I am writing a book,” he said. “Would you be interested in working on it?”
“I would be honored” was my reply.
He said he admired my fearless approach and dedication to my work. I, of course, admired his brilliant ability to connect with everyone he encountered.
As part of Paul’s book team, we encouraged Paul to create a list of self-improvement steps that would help not only small-acreage farmers lift themselves out of poverty but also anyone else who wanted to improve their lives. His first rule was simple and familiar: Go to where the action is.
As Paul explains in his book, this directive seems obvious and yet many of us never discover it. If you want to make a difference, put yourself in the thick of things and listen. Learn from contextual details. Absorb the environment.
This past weekend while I was cleaning out my house to prepare for a move, I found a note that I had written to myself seven years ago and the same smile came to my face. The note was smudged and folded, but on it was a simple phrase “go to where the action is.” The note was from 2002. I had reluctantly left my job in communications at the Lemelson-MIT Program to move across the country to Portland, Oregon. The move proved to be a good one, but the transition between coasts was not easy. I sought out a career coach, and she asked me what resonated with me. ”Where do you want to be?” she asked. I told her that I love being where the action is.
For Paul, the “where” has been in the developing world. For others, the “where” can be on Wall Street or in the White House. Over the past ten years, my “where” has been with the world of media, where news is developed and stories are shaped.
June 26th, 2009
On Wednesday I traveled to NYC to attend Matthew Bishop’s interview with Jacqueline Novogratz from the Acumen Fund. I follow Matthew on Twitter and of course have been reading The Economist for many years. As a matter of fact, when ELISE launched Paul Polak’s book Out of Poverty—which is coincidentally coming out in paperback this fall—The Economist favored Paul’s approach to poverty alleviation over the advice Muhammad Yunus presents in Creating a World Without Poverty.
I digress.
The Wednesday event at 92Y was an opportunity to listen and watch Matthew interview Jacqueline in an intimate and informative setting. Her life story is interesting: her immigrant father who encouraged her to interview at banks after graduating from college; her time at Chase Manhattan; and her eventual decision to bring those banking skills to help impoverished women in Rwanda, thereby making financial institutional history. Also interesting were her thoughts on “creative destruction,” and Acumen’s position on “patient capital.” I purchased her book The Blue Sweater and definitely plan on reading it…perhaps after I finish Matthew’s Philanthrocapitalism!
Jacqueline discussed how fanatical an idea it was back in the eighties to convince Rwandan women to raise $10,000 to start a fund. And, how her subsequent work starting Acumen was similarly unchartered. She is now helping to build a global innovation fund. This is again “changing the game” and fixing something that can be improved.
When Jacqueline was talking about the “truth in the passion of the entrepreneur,” she might have or could have been talking about herself—but, her words resonated with me, as I am now on my second company and understand that you need to remind yourself every day of your original design and determination. Building an organization from the ground up is not easy. And, it is common for even the best of us to ask if we wasted time or “three years of my life” laying the groundwork for later success. ELISE too is creating new systems: the type of PR and marketing firm that I am committed to engages empirically-minded people who are bright and interested in developing and launching innovative brands and products. And, then helping to publicize those achievements. We are the type of people who are concerned about clients but also naturally interested in the world around us. We learn as we work. And, we read Matthew Bishop’s writing and travel to NYC to listen to Jacqueline because we count ourselves among the lucky few who are paid to pursue our passions.
