Risley Ranch

PRSA SW MO Chapter Presentation

I had a super time in Springfield, MO, last night and today at the local PRSA chapter's 5th annual professional development seminar.  I, along with Libby Bender and Gary McCormick, spoke on social media.  Gary is the incoming PRSA Chair, and Libby just started her own gig after many years at Littlefield in Tulsa.  I was humbled by them both.  And this PRSA chapter.  They get it.

As promised, I've attached my presentation.  Download and use as you wish.  Just please give attribution to me and Barkley if you re-publish anything.  And thanks again for being such gracious hosts.

Download Springfield PRSA Presentation_10-8-09.pdf

Our team's 10 principles: #1 - Believe

At the beginning of the year we organized ten key principles we believe in as a team.  These principles are not just pie-in-the-sky goals -- they're expectations.  Sometimes it's hard to make words come alive off the page and put them into practice.  But I've found memorizing them and reciting them to myself often helps.  So I thought I'd use my blog to "recite" them as well.  So each day, I'll post a principle and give a little background about where it came from or why we believe in it.

The first one is "Believe."  We're a team.  We're in this together.  If we don't believe success is possible, it won't happen.

The inspiration for this was my high-school basketball coach, Gene Wilkins.  He was the inspiration for much of my leadership today.  But "believing," in particular, was a Coach Wilkins hallmark.  He made a bunch of small-town, height-challenged kids believe they could play the best defense in the league and win ballgames because of it.  And we did.

The mind is a powerful, powerful thing.  All our reality starts in our mind.  If we don't first believe in our hearts and our minds we can do something, it will never happen in reality.

w00t!

Congratulations to IPREX-brethren JohstonWells Public Relations in Denver and their recent move to new digs downtown.  We know how tough a move is, so nicely done!  I'm also impressed with their new emerging media site, w00t!  First off, cool name.  And the site itself is clean with interesting content.  Keep it up guys.

10 Things I Learned at the OIA Rendezvous

Here's a quick deck that highlights some of what I learned last week at the Outdoor Industry Association's Rendezvous in Boston.

Download ten_things_i_learned_oia.ppt

OIA Rendezvous 2008 Social Media presentation

What a great week!  I had a blast at the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) Rendezvous in Boston last week.  I had the privilege of speaking at one of the break-out sessions on Thursday on social media.  It was well attended, and several people told me they got something out of it -- the best compliment you can get as a speaker.  I've attached the full power point presentation.  It's published under a Creative Commons attribution license, so feel free to share it, steal it, re-use it or otherwise mash it up -- just give credit to me and/or the original sources I've sited when doing so.

Download oia_social_media_presentation_final_10208_risley.ppt

My new yacht

I decided to buy a yacht while I was on Boston. Saw a for sale sign on this little beauty last night while walking to dinner. I used my AmEx so I could earn some serious points.

Boston harbor

Beautiful view of Boston harbor from the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Barkley PR annual retreat

Today our entire PR team -- all 23 of us -- are heading to Chicago for the Cause Marketing Forum conference.  The event is special to us for several reasons.  First, cause is a very important part of who we are.  Second, we're sponsoring the opening reception.  And finally, it's our chance to take our team off-site and celebrate and learn -- something we do every year at our annual retreat.  The CMF was the perfect event to bring this all together.

There will be close to 500 attendees from great brands like AMC Entertainment, the American Heart Association, Burlington Coat Factory, JetBlue, Kraft, Kohl's, L'Oreal Paris, McDonald's, the NASCAR Foundation, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Target and WebMD, just to name a few.

More to come from the conference.

KC PRSA Presentation

I had the privilege of presenting to the Greater Kansas City PRSA chapter last week.  The subject:  "Building Public Relationships Through Social Media."  We hosted about 40 or so folks at Barkley.  It was a great crowd.  Very in tune with the subject matter, and very engaged.  I've posted the presentation below, along with an appendix of data.  Thanks to Tracy Richardson for inviting me and the chapter for allowing me to speak.

Download prsa_sm_presentation.pdf

Download prsa_sm_appendix.pdf

Technorati Tags: PRSA, Presentation, PR

Babies and Tai Chi

I had a great weekend.  So good, in fact, I didn't want to do any work, blog, twitter or anything else except soak in the sun.

Saturday Joe took his testing for karate.  We've had him enrolled in the local ATA franchise for close to six months now.  He practices twice a week with other 5-6 year olds.  It really is neat to watch him go through the moves, and I'm impressed with the positive, confidence-building and respect-generating nature of the program.  I studied Goju Ru karate in college and loved it.  My karate career ended when I destroyed my little finger in a sparing match and had to have reconstructive surgery on it.  Even so, I'd like to encourage Joe to follow martial arts for its mind-body-soul attributes, as well as the need to learn self-defense.

Also on Saturday, I finished an eight-week course in introductory Tai Chi.  I found the Lawrence Academy of Tai Qi through a reference, and decided to make it part of my "Tao Makeover," which I started back in February of this year.  The instructors -- Trish, Adam, Katie and Travler -- are wonderful folks.  They've been practicing this Taoist martial art for at least 10 years each, and it shows.  They teach a derivative of the Wu style, which is one of the five traditional schools of Tai Chi, all of which originated in China.  You probably think of old people in a park doing slow, long movements in unison when you think of Tai Chi.  It is a "soft" martial art; however, it requires all the things I'm trying to better in my 40-year-old self: balance, concentration, stamina and positive energy.  I'm definitely going to continue the training.

On Sunday we headed into Kansas City for the local March for Babies event.  The March of Dimes is a Barkley client, and one of the many brand-changes we helped them with was changing the name of their signature event from Walk America to March for Babies.

It was a gorgeous sunny day, and thousands of people descended upon the Power and Light district for the 1- or 3-mile walk.  We opted for the 1-mile, which went right past the Barkley building, which was decorated to the hilt to show off our passion for this client.  My hat's off to everyone who helped organize us for this event -- especially the MOD team and Jennifer Cawley, who put in all kinds of time organizing and rallying us.

Technorati Tags: March of Dimes, March for Babies, Tai Chi, Barkley