The Internet -- Can't Live Without It

Imagine being at work, and there is no email. Horrors! Then imagine no Internet service at all. More horrors! Well, that’s what happened to us last week. We changed Internet providers from Comcast to AT&T Uverse thinking it would be as simple as having an installation tech come out to put in a new router and then push a switch – voila . . . all done. But that’s not what happened.

It took three visits from AT&T service techs to finally get our Internet up and running properly. During that time, we were without access to the Internet and, more importantly, our email for more than a day – not a good thing for those of us in the communications field. But fortunately the old “third time’s a charm” adage brought us luck, and we could once more communicate with the outside world via the Internet.

This whole experience got me to reflecting on the “good old days” before the Internet. How in the world did we ever get anything done in a timely manner when we had to rely solely on the telephone, fax and snail mail? For research, we had to contact our friendly librarian and ask for assistance or actually go to the library. And there was no scanning and emailing of documents, no webinars, no podcasts, no YouTube. Over the last 15 years, the Internet has obviously made a big difference in how we do business, and its influence keeps expanding at a rapid rate. I can’t even imagine what we have in store for us in the years to come.

Sharron

The challenge of writing recipes

 An article in the Washington Post food section this week about recipe testing took me back to the 70s when I was food editor at the Detroit Free Press.

Very few newspapers then had test kitchens. (Not many have them today either.) I don't know how many food editors actually cooked but I was committed to trying every recipe before printing it. 

I inherited the Free Press test kitchen, an old, institutional-green painted room with an odd collection of antiquated utensils and a few beat-up pans. It was nothing like the photo of the Saveur magazine test kitchen above. 

I remember the first time I actually cooked something. People came from all over. Most reporters didn't even know the Freep had a test kitchen. That's how often it had been used.  

The Post article says that a story out of Chile this past December "was enough to make a publisher’s blood turn colder than a liquid nitrogen milkshake." A newspaper there, La Tercera, was convicted of printing a recipe that caused 13 people to get burned when frying churros in hot oil. They had to pay the victims  more than $160,000 in damages. When handing down its decision, the Chilean Supreme Court said, according to published accounts, that La Tercera had failed to fully test the recipe, causing the rolls of dough to become, essentially, projectile objects.

I agree that it's important for reporters to check all facts and that includes recipes.But even well-tested recipes don't necessarily guarantee success. I remember one cookie recipe that generated a lot of complaints. Surprisingly, the recipe with only three ingredients -- butter, sugar and flour -- had been tested several times and always turned out perfectly. For me, that is.

What could be the problem? A cube of butter is a cube of butter after all. It had to be the way people measured the flour and sugar. To investigate the problem, I collected measuring cups from several dozen neighbors and weighed one cup of sugar to see if all of the measuring devices held the same amount. What an unpleasant surprise! Only a few of the 1-cup measuring cups actually held that amount. 

But even if people weighed out their ingredients instead of using cups, there will still be problems. When I was on tour promoting my first cookbook, Five in Ten: Five Ingredients in 10 Minutes or Less, I prepared a lot of recipes with ingredients that had been assembled for me and found out that what is "finely chopped" to one person is "pulverized" to another. Recently I went to coffee at a friend's house. She served chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. When I asked for the recipe, she said it was mine. Funny thing is her cookies didn't look like any that I've ever seen.

Developing recipes is not an easy job. 

~ Paula

Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions for the PR pro:

Chances are you’ve said something like “Wow, where did the year go?” Stop it. It’s gone. Move on. Here’s a list of ideas to improve YOU (me) in 2012.

10. Go to bed

You’re not smart when you’re tired. Go to bed.

9. Drink less coffee

You didn’t go to bed so you’re compensating with coffee? Stop shaking, it’s hard to type!

8. Eat less cake

That’s not lunch, that’s a coma.

7. Get influential media coverage

Oprah’s show is over (for now), you should be fine.

6. Understand what an email is saying in less than 3 reads

Sometimes it’s not your fault. But it is.

5. Write more lists

People love lists.

4. Get good at writing and stuff

Well said.

3. Wait 10 minutes before checking email, Facebook and Twitter

Chances are nothing happened. And if it did, it can wait 10 minutes.

2. Read more articles

Knowledge is power.

1. Read more fiction, listen to more music and look at more art

This is where writing skills, intellect and innovative ideas truly come from, not Google analytics.

Happy New Year!

-Matt

Why So Much Fish?

There are a lot of stressful things about the holiday season – wrapping up presents with your children banging on the door, making the exact number of cookies you’re required to take to the cookie swap and having your house packed to the brim with relatives can be depended on to raise your blood pressure. But, the dreaded “small talk” at holiday parties is usually near the top of everyone’s list. It’s always nice to catch up with acquaintances and coworkers’ spouses at annual gatherings, but what do you talk about once you’ve covered all the basics in 90 seconds?

One of my favorite questions to ask people is about holiday traditions that are special to their families. It’s always fun to hear what other people do to celebrate the holidays (I had no idea that getting new pajamas on Christmas morning is a regular thing in so many households!) and hear the stories behind family traditions.  

My mom is originally from Poland, and she brought a number of holiday traditions with her. Christmas Eve (Wigilia) is considered more important than Christmas Day itself. We eat our big meal on Christmas Eve and open all of our presents after dinner (quite untraditional, I know).

We anxiously await the appearance of the first star (gwiazdka) to signal the start of the Wigilia feast. Before sitting down at the table, everyone breaks the traditional wafer (oplatek) and exchanges good wishes for health, wealth and happiness in the new year. The number of dinner courses is fixed at seven, nine or eleven, and is traditionally a meatless meal, the result of a long-term mandate of the Catholic Church that a strict fast and abstinence be observed the day before Christmas. The traditional Wigilia menu my mom grew up with included mushroom soup, boiled potatoes, pickled herring, fried fish, pierogi, beans and sauerkraut, and assorted pastries, nuts and candies for dessert. Every year my mom tells us about how her father would purchase the Christmas carp before all the stores would close for the holidays, meaning the live fish took up residence in the bathtub for a few days before the big meal.

Our family enjoys eating fish, but not enough to eat seven courses of it or share  a bathroom with a live carp for a few days, so we’ve adapted these traditional Polish customs. We still start the meal with breaking the traditional wafer, but then sit down to feast on all of our favorite Polish dishes, including meat ones. It’s nice to celebrate our family’s heritage while enjoying the dishes we don’t have very often.

After dinner we roll ourselves into the living room to open all of our presents. We spend the rest of the evening watching our favorite Christmas movies, with A Christmas Story and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation at top of the list. I can usually make it through the first movie but always fall asleep in the middle of the second (this has become a family joke). My husband and I saw National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation recently, and it was the first time in my life that I saw the ending!

Well, this blog post ended up being a lot longer than I expected! Now you know why I pull this topic out of my pocket when party conversations start to falter. So, what are your family holiday traditions?

~ Nicole

What Role Do PR Firms Have on Wikipedia?

So. . .  the latest PR brouhaha is that a PR firm created, edited and changed pages on Wikipedia. 

I don’t know all the details, but the article at this point has a lot of finger pointing and innuendo. Beyond the article some are even saying that a PR firm should not create or edit Wikipedia pages for a client.

I have to say, “What is wrong with a PR firm creating a page for a client or correcting errors in a page about a client?”

I briefly looked at the editorial policy for Wikipedia, and it states, "Anyone can create or edit a page…" It doesn’t say, “except for PR and marketing firms on behalf of a client.”   So I have to believe that when they say “anyone,” they mean ANYONE.

The fact that anyone can create or edit pages is one of Wikipedia’s greatest strengths and, at the same time, greatest weaknesses.

Unfortunately, there are people out there, not all of them working for PR firms, who deliberately remove anything negative, place overly positive comments and editorialize like crazy, not to mention just plain lie on Wikipedia pages that they have designated themselves as the gatekeeper for all information on the subject.

If one of the main duties of a PR firm is to protect their client’s reputation and provide correct information about them, isn’t it also their responsibility to ensure any information concerning that client is up-to-date and accurate on a website like Wikipedia?  

What do you think?

Ken

Getting Ready for the Holidays? Let’s Talk.

It’s December and the holiday season is officially upon us. Can you smell the cookies baking in the oven and the pine scent filling the cool air?

I love the holidays because of the nostalgic feeling that comes over me. I do a little baking, decorate the house and cook up a feast because Filipino culture dictates that I must have a mountain of food enough to feed an army. All jokes aside, this is the only time throughout the year when I have my mother and my brothers under one roof to catch up. It’s when I notice how my children have gotten taller standing next to their uncles or the new wisps of gray hair peeking from my mother’s forehead.

We often laugh and reminisce about the past but recently, I realized that we need to start thinking about the future. It’s my reminder to have a conversation about expectations.

I started the conversation with my mom a couple years ago and it won’t be the last. My mother has been dealing with a heart condition and while she is fully functional and healthy otherwise, I am suddenly faced with having to understand how to deal with unexpected added expenses, role expectations for me and my brothers and what options are available. I don’t get all the answers in one sitting but I understand it’s a process and that I need to start early. It can be overwhelming at times. Fortunately, the state of California has put together a new website, www.RUReadyCa.org to walk you through the steps of planning for long-term care. In fact, here is a list of question to help guide you with your conversation.

Seizing this moment can be uncomfortable but important. So why don’t you join me and bring out the platter of cookies and talk to your loved ones.

~Muriel

@murielbmiller

Happy Thanksgiving

Like many of you, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Everyone always gets along, which wasn't necessarily true with other longer holidays when I was growing up. There's always plenty of fabulous food, great friends, spirited conversation and no pressure to buy gifts.

As a former newspaper food editor, Thanksgiving always presented a challenge. It's the one day of the year when people who never cook face their fears and go into the kitchen. They would call with questions about every little thing. Some people called all day long. But the calls I hated to answer came on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Here's a typical exchange:

"I forgot to put the leftover turkey away. Can I still serve it?"

"How long was it out of refrigeration?" The answer was usually the same.

"Well...all night," generally came the sheepish reply.

"No. It's dangerous to serve perishable food that has been out of refrigeration for more than four hours."

"Well, then can I serve it to my dog?"

Each year food editors dig deep to come up with interesting new recipe and menu ideas. The problem is that no one really wants to make anything different. Thanksgiving is a traditional holiday. My favorite cover story was the time I interviewed a wide range of people, mostly chefs and sports celebrities, and pretended I was inviting them to a pot luck. "What is the must serve Thanksgiving recipe for your family?" The answers were deliciously different. Fanny Farmer Cookbook author Marion Cunningham enthusiastically said, "Watermelon pickles!" Al Attles, former coach of the Golden State Warriors, replied, "Macaroni and Cheese and I always make it myself!"

For our family, the recipe is Carrot Ring. I don't remember ever sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner without enjoying Carrot Ring, a cross between a carrot pudding and a not-too-sweet carrot cake. This year I'm going to bake two of them.

What is the essential dish for your holiday table? 

Best wishes to you and your family for a happy, healthy holiday season.

~ Paula