Shop the Village & Super Shopper Spotter
It's a bird...it's a plane...it's Super Shopper Spotter!A new superhero has descended on Oak Park and he's on the lookout for people shopping locally. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to yours truly, S-3 (for short) is one of the new, fun wrinkles to the 2nd installment of the "Shop the Village" program whose i

When One-Sided Claims Masquerade As News
During my most recent "PR Secrets From a Media Insider" workshop a few days ago, a local businessman asked what time of day deadlines typically happen for the media.Ten or 15 years ago, I could have e

Writing On `State of the Chicago Hotel Market'
It's been awhile since I wrote about hotels. I've written about events at hotels, provided feature reporting for Time magazine on boutique hotels--and even went into one hotel room, right after a police officer, to report on a young man who had fallen to his death from a ledge.But it wasn't until 10 days ago that I wrote about the hotel industry as a whole. It came in the form of a summary report of "The State of the Chicago Hotel Market and Its Reflection of Economic Conditions," at an Urban Land Institute meeting.The speakers I chronicled offered a good news/bad news report--with the good news comin

Sharing Client's Tennis Success a Team Effort
Last week, on the heels of some significant success among girl's tennis players who have been coached for years at Five Seasons Family Sports Club, I wrote a round-up and shared it with the local media. Along with the news release ("Five Seasons Sends Top Frosh Crop to IHSA Tennis Tournament"), which yo

`People Are More Interesting Than Things'
"People are more important than things."My wife and I issue that truth to our children all the time--especially when they argue over who should be able to play with this block or read that book.In the PR world, there is this variation: "People are more interesting than things." In short, individuals are far more newsworthy than incidents. And events are much more likely to attract media coverage when you highlight people involved in the event. Anyone can convey the time, location and other basics of an event. But it takes diligent effort to craft a compelling story linked to that event. This comes to mind on the heels of my current work on beh