The Gong Blog

PR 1.5, #journchat and a Coke

First, sorry for the lapse in posting but after the trip to Birmingham and the ATL, I had to have some downtime with the family. I promise to be more “regular” in the new year. At the urging of one of my Hodges Partnership colleagues, I have tweated the name of the blog to Jon’s PR 1.5.  This title more adequately captures the place that I find myself in daily, the space between the “old” and “new” PR. I was reminded again of that last…

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Rutgers football coach: brand expert?

There are a lot of random thoughts that enter one’s mind on a long drive.  As I mentioned yesterday, we’re on our way to Birmingham to see my beloved Scarlet Knights play in the Papajohn’s.com Bowl.  And in between the squeals of Wall-E on the DVD and my kids looking at the Western Virginia countryside, I pondered my next blog post. So it is fitting that I ponder the resurrection of my alma mater’s football program in branding terms and see what lessons we can…

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What is life without passions

A man cannot live by PR 1.5 alone.  So from time to time I will blog about my other passions (aside of course from my wife and kids, who may show up once in a while). Sports and Springsteen, specifically Rutgers sports, the Mets, the Jets, are you beginning to see a theme here.  Yes my life has been filled with great sports disappointment with a glimmer of hope about once every 20 years or so. Recently that glimmer has been Rutgers football and tonight…

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Seek and ye shall find

I’ll keep things brief tonight because of the holiday. One of my goals in starting this blog is that it would force me to “engage.”  My Facebook and Twitter activity has skyrocketed and I’m finding lot’s of folks out there and many points of view. Another instant fav of mine is Amber Naslund of Altitude Branding.  Here’s her blog. Amber validates many of my thoughts about the future.  You can use your existing skills and apply them to the “new media” outlets. In order to…

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I feel the same way about the future

One of the wonderful things about “getting out there,” (Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, etc.) is that you find others who have been wondering the same things you’ve been wondering. Not everyone has figured out this “future of PR” thing but they are asking the right questions and betting on PR’s place in the new media world.  And the odds are looking pretty good. Recent blog posts reflect these thoughts: Ronn Torossian is asking the right questions about what exactly PR is these days, an issue all…

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Shankman in Richmond: A FightSMA fundraiser

There are few social marketers do a better job of “bridging” the old and new worlds of PR than Peter Shankman. His “Help a Reporter Out” or HARO now boasts more than 40,000 subscribers and provides a link between journalists looking for experts and PR people who have them.  Peter’s, known as “skydiver” on Twitter, travels across the country as a SM evangelist are chronicled in the “news feeds” he sends to the subscribers three times daily.  In those news feeds he touts story opportunities and plays…

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Seth Godin is my hero

As I head down this path and make the transition from the old to new world, I realize that there are a lot of people that I can learn from.  The reason I know this, there seem to be about a zillion people out there who claim their “guruness” in the worlds of viral and social marketing.  My problem, and the problem for countless of others like me trying to navigate those waters, is finding who has it figured out and who is just trying…

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The do’s and don’ts

Some interesting tips from the folks at D.C.-based Livingston Communications about this new “social” world we live in.  I’ve already heard some of the “blah, blah, blah,” they warn about come out of the mouths of consultants. As they used to say on Hill Street Blues, “let’s be careful out there.”

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J-E-S-T

From time to time I will post about other things like my love for Springsteen and New York-area sports teams. For those of us who are long-suffering New York Jets fans, todays loss was expected but still hurts. Wouldn’t it be classic Jest to win next week and back into the playoffs as a six seed with either a Pats or Ravens loss?

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Building the bridge

For a long time I’ve been contemplating a subject for a blog.  I didn’t want it to be just another new media, PR blog from some guy spouting off on all the latest gadgets and outlets available in the ever-changing world of marketing. As part of the “older” PR generation (I hate to admit it), I lived through the online avalanche of the late 90’s, when everyone had to have a website.  Then it took them years to figure out what to do with it. …

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