Soliciting donations is an art form—there’s no single scientifically proven method that’s best in all situations and for all causes. Ideally, you want to hone a message that lies between these two extremes: A) Craft a pitch too subtly, and folks won’t even realize you’re raising money. B) Arrange words that conspire to push too […]
Category Archives: Public Relations
The term “mic drop” is a relatively recent addition to our language. It refers to the dramatic gesture of punctuating the end of your remarks with the action of dropping your microphone—a bold statement that declares “what else is there to say?” While the brashness of that gesture may be a turn-off to some, it […]
Voicing a fierce yearning for equity, justice and building bridges between those who are divided, Kevin Coval delivered a stirring presentation at the Oak Park Public Library on Wednesday evening. He brought to life a sampling of the 77 pieces (one for each city neighborhood) in his 2017 book of poetry, “A People’s History of […]
Our minds have infinite imagination. Words effectively and artfully aligned can move us powerfully as we imagine, or picture, a scenario unfolding. That’s how books have “unlimited budgets”—grander than anything Hollywood could muster. In the reader’s eye, action plays out on a boundless platform. Still, there’s nothing quite like actually “seeing it” with our eyes […]
The car horn was relentless. For at least 30 seconds this morning, someone in downtown Chicago was leaning on theirs to send an urgent message. With ample time between meetings, I stopped walking to see what the fuss was about. A few car lengths past a busy intersection, just north of the Merchandise Mart, an […]
Last week, three fellow Advisory Board “sharks” and I returned to Oak Park and River Forest High School for three half-days to evaluate the 16 student teams from the Business INCubatoredu at OPRF as they made year-end pitches. There were many terrific ideas that stemmed from months of hard work, so it wasn’t a simple task. We […]
About 20 years ago, I decided it would be fun to write a story on waiting in line—the psychology of it, the various ways people experience it, and whatever else flowed from looking into the common phenomenon. To conduct my reporting, I ventured to some of the “usual suspect” waiting spots: a bank, a grocery […]
Whether you’re a widget salesmen or a world-class motivational speaker, testimonials are central to your persuasive story-telling endeavors. Alas, some otherwise-credible individuals and organizations haven’t taken the time to gather such testimonials, which can go by other names–for Inside Edge PR, I call them Success Stories. Only slightly better are those instances when an organization […]
“You’re only as strong as the weakest link in your chain.” That adage came about well before the arrival of social media, obviously. For many, when it comes to LinkedIn, for example, the formula is something like this: 1. Accumulate as many contacts as possible by sending an impersonal, automated request to Link-In. 2. Proceed to […]
In October 2012, On the heels of their first–and last–Vice Presidential debate, I typed “Joe Biden” and “Paul Ryan” into Google. After each name, Google offered up three words to pair with each individual politician who was on his respective party’s ticket in the U.S. Presidential race. See if you can guess which one had […]