#THEROYALDUTCHAIRLINESWORLDCUP TWEET #ABOUTMEXICOCAUSESRAGE.

As nations vie for the distinction of winning the World Cup, airlines seem to be competing to determine who can tweet the most insensitive image.

First, there was Delta, which tweeted an image that indicated Ghana is the home to giraffes. It isn’t. On Sunday, Royal Dutch Airlines, which goes by the initials KLM, one-upped Delta with a tweet celebrating The Netherlands’ win over Mexico.

The tweet’s text simply read, “Adios Amigos! #NEDMEX.” That was accompanied by an image of a “departures” sign that had an image of a man with a large mustache, wearing a sombrero and a bandana around his neck.

According to one observer, the tweet was up for only 25 minutes before KLM deleted it.

A good many people who saw the tweet while it was visible were incensed. Actor Gabriel Garcia Bernal, who has about 2 million followers tweeted, then deleted, a post that threatened never to fly KLM again, followed by, “F**k you big time.”

#THEAPOLOGIES FROM A #DEPARTINGEDITOR by Alan Pearcy

If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my editorial tenure with PR Daily, it’s that all too often, corporate apologies simply don’t work.

Whether it’s the lack of heart behind them or their cookie-cutter nature, more times than not, these overly-polished proclamations end up leaving the public feeling colder than had no apology been issued at all.

And while it’s one thing for me to have made this observation during my coverage of the public relations beat, it may prove quite another to see if I’ve actually absorbed enough from these feeble, failed, and faltered attempts that I’m able to provide my own—hopefully better received—parting apologies to the loyal readers of this site.

I suppose we’re about to find out, as I hereby ask that you please accept these final pleas for forgiveness for any potential wrongdoings from throughout my days here on PR Daily:

1. Sorry to the overzealous grammar Nazis.

Coming from a creative background, I often write how I speak. Anyone who’s read my work can attest to that.

Although taking a conversational tone is something that has always come naturally to me, I quickly realized that my loose-goosey and lackadaisical approach to the English language was not something the PR Daily community always took a liking to.

Perhaps I listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” one too many times growing up, but that was, and still is, my unchanged style of writing.

Luckily, my colleagues have been there to help shape that apathetic tone into something with structure, to make it not only readable, but to provide content that I’m optimistic has been welcomed by you, our audience.

Maybe this bird could be changed a little after all.

[Editor’s note: This moment probably warrants the overdue issuing of a sidebar “sorry” to Ragan Communications’ executive editor, Rob Reinalda, Ragan.com’s managing editor, Roula Amire, PR Daily’s former editor, Michael Sebastian, as well as my current co-editor, Matt Wilson, whose collaborative and taxing responsibility it has been during these past three-plus years to give each story of mine the diligent eye that they so frequently needed. Your constructive criticism has not gone unappreciated.]

2. Sorry to the Associated Press.

They say that rules are meant to be broken. Well, I did. A lot.

Wi-Fi? WiFi? Wifi? Just why?

I quickly learned that the same flair (or lack thereof) with which I accosted sentence structure and grammaticism seemed to bleed into my general disregard for the journalistic style guide of choice.

I earnestly tried the best I could to commit to looking things up. I even bought and downloaded the app.

But just when I’d finally learn something, the AP would decide to change it on me.

On second thought, maybe it should be apologizing to me.

I can wait.

3. Sorry for all of the GIFs.

While Twitter has recently embraced this animated image file of Internet fame, not all of our PR Daily readers have been as welcoming of the moveable bitmap format.

I’ve always monitored and read our comments, making me fully aware of the initial friction that the use of GIFs on this site seemed to cause.

Similar to any time Facebook overhauls and redesigns its social network, however, I felt—and continue to feel—strongly enough in my steadfast devotion to this controversial selection of art that I was willing to endure your disapproval. I did try to curb their usage, though.

Well, aside from the one used above.

[Editor’s note: The same can’t be said about my devotion to memes. As many of you expressed—and I agreed—that was a trend that needed to play itself out. Unfortunately, this new thing called the World Wide Web has a habit of keeping things going well past their prime. Where are memes’ “right to be forgotten”?]

4. Sorry I’m not sorry.

Maybe it was inspiration from Pantene’s recent movement of female empowerment or maybe I’ve just encountered far too many insincere apologies as co-editor of this site.

Either way, I can’t bring myself to add to the sea of disingenuousness when there are already more than enough brands, corporations, and public figures continuously plaguing society with an endless surplus of sad pretenses and phony regrets for downright unjustifiable behavior.

At times, these excuses are so artificial they’re worse than aspartame (and can even leave the same bitter aftertaste).

So to those of you who I have offended, please know it was never my intent. I can promise you that I don’t have a malicious bone in my body. Except towards you, Angela Lansbury. You know what you did.

However, I’m not sorry for a moment of it.

If PR Daily were “Dirty Dancing,” Patrick Swayze would be effortlessly lifting me in the air right now. As the credits prepare to roll on my time here, I can’t help but realize that I’ve had the time of my life writing, editing, and just altogether being a part of this site and its community.

[Editor’s note: OK, now I’m just trying to get my final fix of “Editor’s notes.”]

From all of you readers to our contributors and my deeply cherished colleagues, thank you for allowing me into your lives, teaching me more than I could have ever imagined I’d learn, and simply for being a motivating force in my professional, as well as personal, development.

May you forever stay both snarky and away from spin. 

#THECHRONICANDACUTEPROBLEMS.

    According to Stephen R Covey in his book 8th Habit,there are two kinds of problems in both the physical body and in organizations: Chronic and Acute. Chronic means underlying, casual, continuing. Acute means painful, symptomatic, debilitating. Organizations, like people, can have chronic problems that are not yet acute. Treating these acute problems may mask the underlying chronic condition.
     Several years ago I had a fascinating experience that illustrates this point. A friend of mine was a head of surgery at a hospital in Detroit and specialized in cardiovascular medicine. I asked him if I could spend a day observing surgeons perform surgeries. The experience was absolutely mind-boggling. during one particular surgery that my friend performed, he replaced three vessels. When he finished, I asked, "Why did you have to replace the vessels? Why didn't you just clean them out?"
   He explained in layman's language, "In the earlier stages you can do that, but over time, the plaque builds up until it eventually becomes part of the content of the wall itself."
   "Now that you've corrected these three places," I asked, "is the man clear?" My friend replied, "Stephen, it's chronic. It's all the way through him." He guided my gloved hand to feel the vessels. You could feel the brittleness of the cholesterol material. "But notice," said my friend, "this man is an exerciser; he's developed some supplemental circulation that provides oxygen to muscles, but there's no supplementation to these three occluded vessels. He could still have a heart attack or stroke if a blood clot were to form. He has extensive chronic heart disease."
    Not all chronic conditions have acute symptoms. Before the first acute symptoms ever appear, diseases such as cancer can spread until it's too late.* Just because you can't see surface symptoms doesn't mean the underlying problems are not there. Sometimes people suffer heart attacks when they suddenly stress their bodies-like shoveling heavy snow after the first winter storm of the season. They don't realize they have a heart condition until the stress conditions reveal the acute symptoms.
   The same is true in organizations. You can have serious chronic problems in an organization that shows no acute signs because some organizations do not compete in a tough, global marketplace; they compete locally or in a protected market. They may be financially successful- sometimes very successful. But, as you know, success is relative. The competition's problems may be worse. So why change?

#THEBESTANDWORSTHASHTAG PRACTICES FOR #ONLINEMARKETERS By Nick Ehrenberg

 

 

Hashtags are wonderful social media marketing tools. They can highlight trends, tie campaigns to chosen keywords, and isolate conversations.

The allure of the hashtag is strong, especially for brand managers who desire a customized platform for their content. On Twitter (and, to a lesser extent, on Facebook, Instagram, and Google+), hashtags make for easy tracking of everything from primetime TV shows to organic political movements.
However, like all good things in life, the hashtag should be used in moderation. The pound sign carries great power, but only if deployed responsibly. TechCrunch's Jordan Crook bluntly referred to users who abuse the hashtag as "hash-holes." Avoiding that label requires an understanding of where the hashtag is most beneficial in messaging and where it should never be deployed.
Here are examples of good and bad hashtag strategy in brand social messaging:
Bad practice: Leveraging trending hashtags without tying back to your products
What is the purpose of your hashtag? Is it merely to capitalize on a common or trending phrase, or does it have a direct connection with your brand's products and services? Jumping on a fast-moving topic is good newsjacking practice, but there must be an end goal in line with the tag's deployment.
In Twitter's earlier years, a British furniture store attempted to capitalize on trending topics by including relevant hashtags in their messages—without any real connection to the promoted product

HabitatUK's audience was understandably annoyed by the chain's poor hashtag strategy. The story has cemented itself as a prime example of awful social media tactics in general—the company didn't acknowledge and correct the behavior for several days afterward.
It's far too tempting to throw in a hashtag just because it's popular. If it doesn't make sense with your message, the audience will reject it.
Best practice: Create hashtags that mirror your brand, and give people reasons to use them
Using trending hashtags may help bring short-term traffic to your landing pages, but the real benefits come from creating your own branded hashtags.
Condense your company tagline, name, or campaign into a short tag, and deploy it consistently with your messaging. Tie that tag to social media campaigns, encouraging followers to use it for specific incentives. Over time, the audience will associate that tag with your brand, and you can track engagement via hashtag searches.
Sharpie didn't stray far from the brand when it created its company hashtag. The #Sharpie tag, which uniquely ties to the company, was used to invite artistic submissions from followers. Users responded en masse, posting their creations and increasing Sharpie's brand awareness.

Sharpie benefited from its branded hashtag by promoting creativity and self-expression—concepts that align with its overall messaging strategy. Even if a branded hashtag doesn't generate as much traffic as a generic tag, you have far greater control over its use.
Bad practice: #Using #Too #Many #Hashtags #In #Your #Posts
Just reading that subhead makes my head hurt. Hashtag overuse is a common error in social media messaging, sending signals of desperation and inexperience. An overabundance of hashtags in social media posts has even encouraged some users to create websites dedicated to righting the practice.
Excessive hashtags are problematic on personal accounts, but they are downright fatal on brand accounts. A recent Statista study found a direct correlation between user engagement and hashtag use per Facebook post:

 

Campaigns like #LoveMyDQ help Dairy Queen to use a unique, targeted hashtag to elicit creative responses from their target audience. They can then categorize based on hashtags for easier analysis and tracking.
Bad practice: #Stringingabunchofwordstogether
Seriously, just don't do it.
Proper hashtag use can ignite a campaign on social media, but improper use can irreparably damage your brand's reputation. These examples should help clarify best practices for hashtags, and how to avoid the most common blunders.
However, if recent reports from Twitter's CEO are true, we might not have to deal with this issue much longer.
Have you seen any other good (or terrible) examples of hashtag use from brands?
A version of this article first appeared on TopRankBlog.

#THEWALMARTEDITS CRITICAL #NEWYORKTIMESCOLUMN.

 

The question of whether big-box stores such as Walmart pay fair wages and give back sufficiently to communities stirs rancorous debate, from newspaper editorials to U.S. senators.

But when New York Times writer Timothy Egan blasted the brand in a recent column headlined “The Corporate Daddy,” Walmart sought to use humor to hit back at alleged inaccuracies.

Highlighting the shifting dynamics between brands and media outlets in the social media age, a company official offered a “fact check” on its website. He marked up Egan’s copy with an editor’s red ink and then pushed the reply on Twitter.

“Tim: Thanks for sharing your first draft,” wrote David Tovar, Walmart’s vice president of corporate communications, in a statement published on its website. “Below are a few thoughts to ensure something inaccurate doesn’t get published. Hope this helps.”

Egan got Walmart’s goat by asserting the company is a poor corporate citizen offering low wages that force employees to get public assistance from food stamps, Medicaid, and other forms of welfare. He compared Walmart unfavorably to Starbucks.

“As long as the Supreme Court says that corporations are citizens, they may as well act like them,” Egan wrote, adding that the nation’s largest public corporation “is a net drain on taxpayers, forcing employees into public assistance with its poverty-wage structure.”

The charges take on significance at a company that tops the Fortune 500 list. Walmart employs 2.2 million people worldwide, 1.3 million of them in the U.S.

Adopting a just-trying-to-be-helpful tone, Tovar laid out the chain’s rebuttal to the suggestion that it doesn’t pay its share of taxes. “We are the largest taxpayer in America,” he wrote. “Can we see your math?”

The company also pushed back on the notion that its pay forces people into public assistance.

“We see more associates move off of public assistance as a result of their job at Walmart,” Tovar wrote.

Walmart replied to several writers and influencers who had tweeted Egan’s piece on Twitter. Among them was New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse. In what must have been a victory for the company, Greenhouse also tweeted Walmart’s reply.
In his column, Egan noted a sign that appeared at a Walmart in Ohio last year, “asking people to donate food so that the company’s employees ‘could enjoy Thanksgiving.’” He called this “a perfect symbol of what’s wrong with the nation’s most despised retailer.”

Tovar responded, “To clarify, associates were helping associates during unexpected hard times (fires, divorce, loss of life, etc.). And a noble cause, no doubt.”

When Egan writes of Starbucks, “the company has long been a leader in providing decent wages, stock and retirement benefits, and health care—even for part-time employees,” Tovar red-inks it to read “both companies have...”

The New York Times shrugged off Walmart’s pushback. Eileen M. Murphy, vice president of corporate communications, stated in an email, “Walmart is certainly entitled to its opinion but that doesn't change the facts presented in the column. They have not asked for a correction.”

Walmart did not immediately respond after I left a phone message and filled out its online media contact form. (By the way, folks: Those forms annoy reporters for just this reason—you never know whether the message has been delivered.)

Others saw Walmart’s response, including social media, as a smart move.

“A few years ago, the company would have been forced to write a letter to the Times and hope it was printed,” Tripp Frohlichstein, owner of Media Masters Training, said in an email.

Walmart’s reply drew an article in the conservative Daily Caller and the libertarian Cato Institute.

Isn’t it risky to challenge a company that buys ink by the barrel? Frohlichstein doesn’t think so.

“Walmart is big enough to take on The New York Times,” he said. “They could either ignore it and see public opinion (potentially) further swayed against the retail giant or they can fight back. The key in fighting back, though, is that Walmart needs to be accurate in its rebuttal.”

@r_working

#AGUIDETOPERFECT #SOCIALMEDIAPOSTS.

 

People like to say there's no such thing as perfect, but at the rate customers' attention spans are decreasing, social media managers can't risk posting updates that aren't close to perfection.

What does a perfect social media post look like?
An infographic from My Clever Agency has the answer. It explains in detail what strong, engaging and effective social media posts should include. While we've gone over what good Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ posts look like, this infographic has been updated to include YouTube, Instagram, Vine and Tumblr.
Are you ready to achieve perfection? Here are a few tips as to how:
YouTube:

• Carefully name your files. You want your videos to be searchable, so when you upload a video, make sure the file name includes strong keywords, not just "Movie1.mp4."
• Include a call to action. What do you want viewers to do after they watch your video? Give them instructions in the description section, and include a link to your website.

Instagram:

• Use captions. Add captions to your photos to grab followers' attention and prompt discussions.
• Follow basic photography rules. The graphic recommends following the rule of thirds, which says the subject of your photo should only take up two-thirds of the shot. This will make your photos more visually appealing.

Vine:

• Be still. Invest in a tripod to prevent your video from looking shaky. You don't want to make fans nauseous.
• Master the infinite loop. The goal is to create a video that will seamlessly loop over and over. Try to make your final scene blend smoothly into the first one.

#THECOMMUNICATORS, ARE YOU #CONFUSINGTHESEVERBALCOUSINS? by Jennifer Hanson

Most public relations professionals relay on their spell checkers.

Looking for red underlings to help identity misspelled words can provide a misleading confirmation of accuracy.

If those first two sentences weren’t like nails on a chalk board, you definitely should read this post.

Technology is our friend, right? Well, while we all cozied up to spell-check, it decided we could use the wrong word as long as it was spelled correctly. Here is where you can get into trouble.

No problem, we have a Word to the Wise: Here are five little bandit groups that PR professionals must watch before they undermine the credibility of your professional communications.

1. Accept, Except, and Expect

Accept is a verb that means “to take in.” The preposition except means “other than.” The verb expect means to “depend on” or “await.”

• All public relations pros, except those who are very old school, accept the influence of social media. We expect it to be part of our planning now.

2. Affect and Effect

Affect is a verb meaning “to influence.” Effect is a noun meaning “result.” When used as a verb, effect means “to cause.”

• PR campaigns affect the media in various ways. Understanding is a natural effect of clear communication.

3. Assume and Presume; Assumption and Presumption

Assume means (1) to take upon oneself; to take over duties and responsibilities; or (2) to take for granted or without proof. Presume means (1) to take for granted or without proof; or (2) to undertake without permission.

• We’ve all attended social functions where someone seems to know it all and makes the assumption that people enjoy hearing his vast input. We cannot make the presumption that he will stop talking on his own, unless we have been in his company before and know this is true.

4. Attain and Obtain

The word attain means to achieve, accomplish, or succeed in reaching a goal; obtain means to acquire or get possession of something.

• There can be no guarantee that your public relations campaign will attain its expected results or obtain more clients for your business, although that is always the goal.

5. Assure, Ensure, and Insure

The verbs assure, ensure, and insure all mean “to make certain or secure.” Use assure for people, ensure for things, and insure for money and guarantees (insurance).

• These grammatical recommendations can help ensure you write professional press releases. Although LTPR does not insure you for spelling mistakes, we can assure you that the more professional your presentation—especially when it comes to the accuracy of your word choices—the more success you will have in relaying your message.

These represent just five of our examples. What are yours? 

#THEMARYLANDCANDIDATE'S ATTACK AD #USESPHOTOOFOPPONENT DOING #CANCERSUPPORTPOSE By Matt Wilson.

Students at the University of Maryland are familiar with the online trend of “Zaching”—photographing oneself with arms up and muscles flexed.

It’s a tribute to Zach Lederer, a Maryland basketball team manager who died of brain cancer in March. The meme has become so popular that there’s an entire Tumblr dedicated to photos of people—including master flexer Hulk Hogan—“Zaching.”

Larry Hogan, the Republican nominee in Maryland’s gubernatorial race, was clearly not so familiar with it, nor was anyone on his staff. A photo of his opponent, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, doing a “Zaching” pose made it into an attack ad which dubs Brown “the most incompetent man in Maryland,” a parody of Dos Equis’s “the most interesting man in the world” ads. 

The Maryland Democratic Party called the use of the photo “a despicable ad politicizing the struggle of recently deceased cancer victim,” The Washington Post reported.

The Hogan (Larry, not Hulk) campaign is pleading ignorance, saying they had no idea the pose was anything but hubris.

“All they saw was two guys flexing their muscles,” spokesman Adam Dubitsky said of the ad’s creators. “We didn’t get it.”

The photo was posted to Facebook in May without any caption to contextualize it. Other times the campaign had posted the ad, there were captions tying it to Lederer.

Even so, the campaign is sticking by the ad, and won’t be swapping out the photo. Dubitsky said Brown and Democrats should be responding to the ad’s claims about spending and incompetence rather than the use of a photo. 

#THEPRLESSONS FROM #REMODELINGPROJECT By Paige McDaniel

Since February, I have spent nearly every weekend remodeling my boyfriend’s cabin.

A pipe burst on Valentine’s Day weekend, and a $12,000 insurance claim turned into new windows, doors, flooring, drywall, decks, interior and exterior paint, landscaping, and quilts.

I have taken the lessons from the remodeling process and have applied them to my Monday-Friday job. Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. There’s always more you can do.

One extra little adjustment can be made or perfected, and another decorative pillow can spruce up old furniture. The same concept can be applied to public relations. Your marketing strategy will never be completely done; a proper public relations strategy will always require a little attention and adjustment.

2. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize.

My boyfriend quickly got immersed in all the makeover possibilities; a new bathroom project escalated to a full renovation of the house in a matter of weeks. In public relations, there is always another opportunity to pursue, but it’s important to focus on what must be accomplished rather than spreading yourself too thin.

3. Communication is everything.

We have had bad luck when it comes to communicating with our contractors. They say they will call but don’t, they tell us they completed a job but didn’t, and they show up when it’s convenient for them instead of working according to our schedule. When it comes to public relations, communication must be consistent and clear so that everyone involved knows what is happening and when.

Readers, please offer any other parallels you see between PR work and home remodeling.

#HOWFAKETWITTERFOLLOWERS CAN #DAMAGEYOURBRAND.

Didn’t we learn anything from Manti Te’o?

Surely you remember the former standout Notre Dame linebacker who was publicly embarrassed—and worse—last year when Deadspin revealed the dead girlfriend he’d been mourning in the national news media was not real.

It was a major PR crisis. The revelation came just before the NFL draft, and the ensuing scandal and questions about Manti’s motives helped deflate his draft status.

His “relationship” started with a fake Twitter profile in 2011. You would think that would be a powerful cautionary tale for any public figure tempted to flirt with online fakes.

Yet, this month, Politico published an article about notable elected officials with huge fake Twitter followings: President Obama, Sen. John McCain, and Gov. Chris Christie, to name a few. The writer speculated that overzealous campaign workers eager to impress their bosses purchased “bots” to artificially inflate followings.

What’s the benefit of a fake follower for a politician? A bot can’t vote. And if they’re retweeting your messages, it’s likely only to a bunch of other bots who can’t vote either.

As the article points out, there are tools easily accessible to the media, the public, and to political enemies that can estimate the percentage of fake in a Twitter following. Whether you’re a politician or a business owner, the odds are good that you’ll be exposed.

So far, it hasn’t hurt the politicians much, but then, they have little credibility left with the voting public anyway. It’s far riskier for business owners.

That’s why it worries me that so many of them and/or their marketing consultants continue to buy fake followers. Just last week, I had to tell a new client that his previous social media marketing firm had built him a Twitter following that was almost 90 percent fake. The client wasn’t happy to learn that all those followers could do nothing to help his business.

Because people are still falling for the idea that there’s value in thousands of followers bought dirt cheap, let me be clear: Fake Twitter followers are useless.

They can’t go on a date with you, vote for you, use your product, hire your service, or read your book.

Some “digital marketers” say their value is in the status and credibility a huge following conveys. That might have been true in the early days of Twitter, when the legitimacy of a following couldn’t be verified with an online fake following tool. But social media users are getting savvier and more discerning: Not only can they see through scams and fakes, they avoid the perpetrators like the plague.

In business (and politics), credibility offers far more benefits than any false following can. That crucial credibility can take a big hit if your competition uses one of those fake follower-checking tools to expose you and your brand. You’re going to look just as fake as the bots you bought.

Instead, invest time in building a legitimate legion of Twitter followers who depend on what you (or your clients) have to say every day. As we move forward in the social networking game, engagements are really what you’re after. When you can get that user to take action (like a communication that can lead to a date, a vote or a purchase), you’ve done an effective job executing on a social network.

At speaking engagements around the country, I teach business owners that if they want to build a legitimate Twitter following, the basics of marketing still apply:

1. Identify your target demographic

2. Create content that appeals to your target demographic

3. Engage with (tweet at, follow, retweet, favorite, etc.) that target demo

4. Work hard every day repeating steps 2 and 3

As with anything else in marketing or life, if you stick to the basic rules and don’t take shortcuts, you can achieve sustainable success.

If only that were true in politics. 

#THEFEDERALSTUDENTAIDORGANIZATION #APOLOGIZESFORI'MPOORTWEET.

There’s a fine line between funny and insulting, and it appears that the Twitter account for FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, crossed it with its very first tweet.

The Tuesday night tweet blasted out the message, “If this is you, then you better fill out your FAFSA,” with an image of actress Kristen Wiig saying, “Help me. I’m poor,” underneath. It’s a screenshot from the movie “Bridesmaids.” 

Students who rely on financial aid to pay for college took umbrage at being called “poor,” and a few hours after the tweet went up, FAFSA deleted it. 

The Department of Education also issued this statement to Consumerist:

We apologize for this insensitive Twitter post, which flies in the face of our mission of opening doors of opportunity for every student. It was an ill-conceived attempt at reaching students through social media. We are reviewing our process for approving social media content to ensure it reflects the high standards we expect at the U.S. Department of Education.

Even so, there’s no denying that the tweet and the apology were actually somewhat successful in drawing attention to FAFSA. As of Wednesday afternoon, the account had more than 65,000 followers. 

#20JOBSOPENINGS IN #THEPRANDMARKETING #WORLD.By Alan Pearcy

Baaaaaawk, bawk, bawk, baaaaaaaawk.

Not to be deliberately antagonizing, but I'm calling you out, PR candidates.

Yum! Brands is hiring a public relations manager to watch over all aspects of the company’s day-to-day external communications on behalf of its KFC division.

Based in Kentucky, the position is responsible for fielding press inquiries, drafting communications, creating and executing brand media initiatives, and working with the company’s marketing and social media teams to help drive content for the popular chicken chain.

Also tasked with providing counsel to stakeholders, franchisees, and local market operators regarding company crises and reputation management, applicants must be comfortable working under pressure.

So if you’re not too chicken, click here to apply.

Not the job for you? See what else we have in our weekly professional pickings:

• Co-editor, PR Daily—Ragan Communications (Ill.)

• Multimedia journalist—Detroit Lions (Mich.)

• Social media specialist—O’Reilly Auto Parts (Mo.)

• Integrated marketing communications manager—Motorola (Md.)

• Community manager—IndieFlix (Wash.)

• Manager, internal communications—Children's Hospital Los Angeles (Calif.)

• Content editor—Bodybuilding.com (Idaho)

• Communications advisor—FedEx (Texas)

• Public relations coordinator—University of Iowa (Iowa)

• Public relations intern—Turner PR (Colo.)

• Communications assistant—Roger Williams University (R.I.)

• Public relations director—VF (N.Y.)

• Corporate communications director—Omaha Steaks (Neb.)

• Senior specialist, public relations—Alzheimer's Association (D.C.)

• Public relations and marketing account executive—Full Circle PR (Fla.)

• Online marketing intern—BeenVerified (N.Y.)

• Director of public relations—City Colleges of Chicago (Ill.)

• Market specialist—Dairy Farmers of America (Mo.)

• Communications manager—Seattle Public Schools (Wash

#NORTHWESTERNJOURNALISMGRADS GET #DIPLOMASWITHATYPO.

Even journalists who didn’t graduate from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism are aware of the “Medill F.” Quite a few other journalism schools have adopted the practice of failing any student who turns in an assignment with an error. It could be a factual mistake, or a spelling error.

So it was pretty ironic this year when, upon receiving their diplomas, about 30 of the 250 graduates found that they had completed a degree from the “Medill School of Journalism, Media, Itegrated Marketing Communications.” That’s “itegrated” rather than “integrated.”

The Internet eats this stuff up, and media outlets ran with it.

Jim Romeneso received the following statement from Northwestern’s director of undergraduate education, Desiree Hanford:

It appears that about 30 of the more than 250 diplomas given out at Saturday’s two graduation ceremonies had a spelling error. The diplomas are issued by the university, so we will work with the NU registrar’s office Monday to provide new diplomas to these students.

But who gets the failing grade? 

#ELIMINATETHESEWORDS FROM YOUR #PRMESSAGING.

Sometimes it’s best to say nothing at all.

Public relations is not just about having a message, it is about having the right message at the perfect time. When crafting that message, understanding what not to say is every bit as important as what you do say, and when you say it. Sometimes that step is as simple as understanding which words you should never use and which ones you should use sparingly.

Here are five words that should rarely, if ever, find their way into your PR communications.

1. Really. Effective communication requires precision. Eliminating imprecise words will increase your audience’s understanding. “Really” is a pretense to imply increased gravity, but it adds little value.

2. Perhaps. Some use “perhaps” to hedge their bets, but it only creates uncertainty. People remember definite statements, so be precise and definite. Ditch “perhaps.”

3. Amazing. Far too many things today are described as “amazing.” Like “awesome,” amazing is used so often that people read right past it. Thus, “amazing” means less than nothing. Find synonyms that are more precisely descriptive, and you and your readers will be better off.

4. Stuff. Again, this is a nonspecific, filler word that some use to describe things—without actually describing them. When writing for the press, you must be as specific and detailed as possible. Leave that “stuff” out.

5. Got. Yes, there are arguments to be made on both sides. “Got” is a versatile verb. “I’ve got this!” “I’ve got to go!” “I got up this morning, got the paper, and got in my car to go to work.” Sure, it’s versatile, but that certainly doesn’t mean “got” should be seen in your PR messaging. In almost every case, there is a superior way to construct a sentence without “got” in there.

Erase these five words to strengthen your PR communication. 

#THESTANDARDSTOSET FOR #PRMEASUREMENT.By Aly Saxe

I led a roundtable on PR measurement, and we didn’t get past the second slide.

That’s because the first slide asked: “How does your agency measure PR success?”

The PR agency owners in attendance, hailing from all over the country, offered an array of answers with limited crossover among them. I learned that ad equivalency rates have (finally) gone by the wayside, but in their place there has cropped up a slew of metrics that PR agencies and in-house PR pros use.

Based on the points that came up during this discussion and in the many others I’ve had with colleagues over the years, I’d like to offer four standards for PR measurement that could cover all the bases:

1. Earned media and social mentions

Since the dawn of PR, we’ve been counting what we earn. That’s not going to stop, and it shouldn’t. But consider this: Are you assigning a value to every earned placement? Does a tweet by someone with 10,000 followers hold the same weight as one from someone with 1,000 followers within your client’s industry? Does a mention in the local Business Journal have the same impact as a mention in a popular industry blog?

Not all earned results are created equal, so let’s add some depth to those numbers.

How to do this: Because every client has different priorities, the targets you’re going after will vary case by case. When you build your media list, take an extra 30 minutes and score every target based on these factors: direct influence on customer, reach or circulation, and ability to drive leads. When there’s a result, you’ll add a score for length of the story and tonality.

If you’re not using a tool that does this kind of scoring, you can easily come up with a scoring system yourself, maybe on a scale from one to five. The key here is to get buy-in from each client or decision maker on not only whom you’re going after, but how you’re scoring them.

2. Web performance

Very few agency reps I’ve spoken with are monitoring Web analytics. As PR becomes increasingly digital, it is imperative that we track which earned media placements are driving traffic, as well as which ones aren’t, so we know which media outlets to focus on.

How to do this: Chances are your clients are already doing this. If you think it’ll be difficult to get access to their website analytics, you may be surprised. You might also be surprised to learn that they are using tools in addition to Google Analytics that can help you sift through the Web data more easily, and are all too happy to teach you how to use those tools. If they aren’t using Google Analytics or other digital analytics tools, be the hero and help them get this set up.

3. Efficiency

All results are not created equal, and neither are the efforts to obtain the results. Ask President Cheese about that. If your team is overservicing to the hilt to get a handful of results for a single campaign, you must ask yourself some hard questions: Was the outcome reasonable in relation to the effort? Which types of campaigns give you the highest return on your effort? Who on your team is the real media bulldog?

Why measure efficiency? Because it can drive strategy. It sets benchmarks so you can set appropriate goals and expectations. It shows you where to put your effort and where to back off. That can save you time and money.

Marketers do this with every tactic they employ, it’s called a conversion rate. PR teams should adopt something similar.

How to do this: Before you dive into any new campaign, set goals. Then when the campaign is finished, take a look at the total effort that went into getting whatever results you achieved. As you do this with more and more campaigns, you’ll start to see patterns. Certain types of campaigns will give you a bigger success rate than others. You’ll notice, too, that you can set goals based on past performance of similar campaigns.

4. Leads and conversions

Gone are the days when PR teams could lean back on just providing “reputation management” alone. In most cases, if the PR program isn’t helping to drive revenue, then it’s on the chopping block. PR teams must get a handle on how their results drive leads and conversions.

How to do this: As with Web analytics, this is information you’ll have to ask for. Most marketing organizations can tell you where leads are generated, and then just as easily tell you which of those leads convert to customers. If your clients or marketing counterparts aren’t using tools to provide this info, then you have some options.

Once again, you could be the hero and recommend tools that will provide this data. But we know that these kinds of platforms take a serious time, money, and resource investment. Sometimes it’s not feasible.

If that’s the case, another option is to determine with the client how to measure new business. For instance, a new restaurant opening might count as conversions the number of reservations following a local TV spot. A nonprofit could count the number of net new donors following a write-up. Tap into what the client is already doing to count “wins,” and come up with a way to measure PR’s contribution to that success.

It may be a while before PR catches up to our measurement-savvy marketing counterparts. But coming to terms on industry standards could help us get there faster.

How do you measure PR success? 

#THESTUDY:#JOURNALISTS RELY ON #SOCIALMEDIA, YET SAY #IT'SUNRELIABLE. By Barbara Nixon

If Jimmy Olsen told Clark Kent that he was going to publish a story now and then correct it later if there were errors in it, Clark Kent would be sorely disappointed in his young photojournalist colleague. And if he existed, he would perhaps be saddened at the findings from the 2014 Study impact of Social Media on News, published by Netherlands-based bank ING this month.

The study offers a variety of insights and expectations. Some of the nuggets of information that might be the most compelling for public relations practitioners are:

• "One-third of journalists said social media posts are not a reliable source of information. Despite this half of journalists said social media were their main source of information." Okay, let me get this straight. They think the information is not reliable, yet they rely on it? All righty then.

• "Journalists (60 percent) said they feel less bound by journalistic rules on social media than with traditional media such as a newspaper article." I'm fascinated by this statistic; what leads these journalists to stray?

• "Journalists expect journalism to be driven by clicks and views more than by content." Maybe this is what we should expect with Upworthy-style headlines being so prevalent, and Buzzfeed-style listicles ruling the Web.

• "Sixty-eight percent of journalists use social media to find out what people are talking about." Now this makes sense; it's much easier now than ever before to discover what people are discussing and sharing.

• "Eighty-one percent of PR professionals believe that PR can no longer operate without social media." If you're working in an organization that discounts the impact of social media, you're in the minority.

• The most frightening statistic of all from this study? "Only 20 percent always check the facts before publishing." My former journalism professor will not be pleased when he reads this. Yikes.

But there's a bright side. ING surveyed fewer than 400 journalists and public relations practitioners, with about half of the responses coming from the Netherlands. Perhaps the sample wasn't as broad or representative as it could have been?

We can only hope.

#THEBOOKSAMILLIONNAMED #WORSTCOMPANYTOWORKFOR.

If you’re considering a move to a new job, you may want to cross these companies from your list of potential future employers.

The website 24/7 Wall St. has published its annual list of the worst companies in America to work for, based on Glassdoor reviews of publicly traded companies.

There are some obvious ones on there, like struggling electronics retailers Radio Shack and Hhgregg. Both companies have been in the news with stories of faltering in revenue and stock prices.

Complex pay structures appear to be another source of employee discord, with ADT, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Books-A-Million, and Dillard’s making the list based on “stressful commission-based pay structures,” according to the site.

Books-A-Million took the dubious prize of being named the absolute worst place to work, with a meager 14 percent of employees saying they’d recommend it to a friend. 24/7 Wall St. reports that "high stress and low pay were common complaints" among employees.

Employees also don't seem to be too fond of the CEO, Terry Finley. That's something Books-A-Million shares with the other companies on the list, too.

Here’s the full list:

11. Radio Shack
10. Children’s Place
9. Family Dollar Stores
8. Hhgregg
7. ADT
6. Dillard’s
5. Brookdale Senior Living
4. Jos. A. Bank Clothiers
3. Frontier Communications
2. Express Scripts
1. Books-A-Million 

#HOWTOADDFLAVOR TO YOUR #WRITING WITH #COLORFULTURNSOFPHRASE.

As writers, we have an arsenal of rhetorical devices and figures of speech at our disposal to enliven our copy. The devices most often used are similes and metaphors.

When used correctly, these phrases help us paint pictures with words, adding depth to our messages. (Under John’s leadership, our workplace had become like “Animal Farm.”)

When used incorrectly, the results can be confusing and silly. (It sticks out like a sore throat.)

It’s also important to avoid clichés—metaphors that are so commonplace that they’ve lost their power completely. (Clichés can make your writing dead in the water.)

I am fortunate to have co-workers who are particularly clever with figures of speech, playfully tweaking metaphors and similes to humorous effect. Here are a few of their best work-related similes, metaphors, and figures of speech.

• This project is like the crazy train hitting a dumpster fire.

• If it doesn’t look good, don’t put it out on the front porch.

• Let’s jump off that bridge when we come to it.

• I felt like a violin in a marching band at that meeting.

• Members of the planning committee have gone down a rabbit hole the size of the Grand Canyon.

• Watch out for William in HR. He’s a wolf in cheap clothing.

• We’re laughing with you and at you.

• Just remember, it all comes out in the wash.

• Getting approval for that article was like trying to put a bear in a barrel.

• Does it ever seem like the clown acts are running the circus?

• He came to the meeting a day late and a dollar short.

• Whatever you do, don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

• She was as useless as a solar-powered flashlight.

• Finding someone to respond to that post was like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.

• Keep your friends close and your communication plan closer.

• That meeting was painful, like a long walk in tight shoes.

• Similes are like metaphors.

PR Daily readers, care to share any examples of great figures of speech? 

#THE50BOOKS EVERYONE #NEEDSTOREAD, 1963-2014

1. 1. 1963 — The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
      
      Sylvia Plath’s only novel manages to be both elegant and filled with raw, seething emotion – no small feat, and not the least of the reasons the reading world is still obsessed with her. There were a host of other great books this year, but the Plath legend (not to mention the Plath legion) still looms so large in... our collective unconsciousness that this one seems by far the most essential to a modern reader’s repertoire.
      
      1964 — Herzog, Saul Bellow
      
      Sure, Herzog is a midlife crisis book. It’s also a triumph of style, this wordy, beautiful epistolary novel, an examination of strife both existential and practical, a philosophical experiment with emotional roots. As Jeffrey Eugenides wrote, “If you’re in the market for a safe neuro-enhancer, something to break you out of your foggy-headedness, a pill more powerful than Adderall or Provigil, with no side effects other than pleasure, then pick up Herzog and open it — anywhere — and read.”
      
      1965 – The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley
      
      This book is an influential classic of American autobiography, a required volume for anyone interested in American history, spiritual conversion, race, class, politics, or just an extraordinary read.
      
      1966 – Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag
      
      Sontag’s most famous collection is essential reading for anyone interested in art or literature for something more than pure entertainment. Impossibly brilliant, cocksure, and ever-curious, she will continually blow you away.
      
      1967 — The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
      
      Yes: Bulgakov over Márquez, and it’s not only because The Master and Margarita is this writer’s favorite book. Or maybe it is, a little. This novel – in which the devil and his retinue visit 1930s Moscow and raise, well, hell – is hilarious, mind-expanding, snide, brilliant, a compelling tale, a brutal satire, a rewritten history, and one of the best novels of this or any year.
      
      1968 — Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
      
      Didion’s first collection established her as a phenomenal prose stylist, an incisive mind, and a relentless chronicler of the American experience. A very few of the essays collected here seem dated in 2013, but most sing with truth even under the pressure of decades.
      
      1969 — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
      
      Now this was a tough one. Ultimately, though, the impact of Angelou’s masterpiece, which James Baldwin called “a Biblical study of life in the midst of death,” eclipses all else published this year. The book, a beautiful work of literature in its own right, also opened pathways for African-American women – and women, and people – and launched the career of an American treasure.
      
      1970 – Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
      
      No one gets teenagers like Judy Blume. For so many young people, this book was a revelation, and it will probably remain a cultural touchstone for all time
      
      1971 – The Complete Stories, Flannery O’Connor
      
      This posthumous collection is the only one of its kind on this list, but it was impossible to ignore. O’Connor is the enduring master of the Southern macabre, as exhaled coolly with one’s cigarette smoke. Every story is a revelation.
      
      1972 – Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
      
      This was a difficult choice, since it precludes the inclusion of If on a winter’s night a traveler later on. But while that novel is a particular favorite of a certain literary editor, you can’t argue with Invisible Cities. In this luminous exploration of the mind, the reader listens in as Marco Polo describes various imaginary, impossible, phenomenal cities to the emperor Kublai Khan. Reading this book is like jumping into a pool of cool, clear water – and then staying under until you start to hallucinate. In a good way.
      
      1973 – Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
      
      Pynchon’s masterpiece is widely heralded as one of the best American novels ever written, and one of the pillars of postmodern fiction. Complicated, very long, and mind-expanding, it’s a book for these times or any.
      
      1974 – The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
      
      There is no last 50 years without Ursula Le Guin. Or at least, there shouldn’t be. This book, which took home handfuls of Best Novel awards in the world of science fiction in its year of publication, was described by Gerald Jonas of The New York Times as being “so persuasive that it ought to put a stop to the writing of prescriptive Utopias for at least 10 years.” It might not have done that, but that doesn’t take away from its power one bit.
      
      1975 – The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux
      
      This book is one of the most important travelogues of the last 50 years, one that likely launched a thousand train trips, and written by a fascinating, outspoken literary figure the like of which we rarely see anymore.
      
      1976 – Speedboat, Renata Adler
      
      It may be a novel, or it may be an anti-novel, but whatever it is, Adler’s Speedboat is an unrelentingly magical piece of writing, filled to the brim with curls of thrilling language and commonplace observations put just so. Plus, the book manages to capture what it’s like to be young and in New York – or just to be alive and looking around yourself – like almost nothing else. You might shrug, but everyone tries to accomplish this, and almost everyone fails.
      
      1977 – The Shining, Stephen King
      
      This is the book that established King as the, well, king of the American horror novel. Smart, culturally resonant and scary as hell.
      
      1978 – The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
      
      Murdoch’s inventive Booker Prize-winning novel swirls as much as its namesake – with self-delusion, with obsession, with the ebb and flow (not to put too fine a point on it) of friendships and love affairs. A stunning novel by one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.
      
      1979 – The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
      
      Fairy tales are an integral part of the way we read novels and stories – hell, they’re an integral part of the social fabric. Carter’s feminist, adult re-imaginings of the greatest hits are necessary and brutal for anyone whose parents ever read them off to sleep.
   2. 1. 1980 – Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
         
         Despite his unfortunate politics, Orson Scott Card wrote one of the best, most engaging, and most cerebral books about war, the government, and being a kid. Not to mention that he created the scariest and coolest computer game ever.
         
         1981 – Outside Over There, Maurice Sendak
         
         People make a fuss over Where the... Wild Things Are. It may be deserved, but this, this twisted, gorgeous, upsetting little book is Sendak’s masterpiece. And the masterpiece of a national treasure is worth extra.
         
         1982 – The Color Purple, Alice Walker
         
         Walker’s epistolary novel, which won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, has become a much-challenged classic for its treatment of the African-American female experience in the 1930s – with all the sexual politics, racism, and violence that that entailed. A powerful, moving American mainstay.
         
         1983 – Cathedral, Raymond Carver
         
         Carver is nearly synonymous with excellence in short stories, and with good reason. The tales in this book are brilliant, restrained, and surprising, maneuvering with careful grace.
         
         1984 – Money, Martin Amis
         
         Money is Martin Amis’s masterpiece, a fierce, hilarious book about the hedonistic downward spiral of an English commercial director. Smart and mean, this is the book that makes Martin Amis, Martin Amis
         
         1985 – The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
         
         Yikes. This year might have presented the most difficult of choices. Just look at that spread. Let’s say The Handmaid’s Tale because it’s brilliant, because it’s terrifying, and because unlike some books that are creeping up on their 30th birthdays, the older it gets, the more relevant it seems
         
         1986 – Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman
         
         Spiegelman’s graphic novel/memoir of his father is one of the loveliest, best-written, and most terrifying books about the Holocaust to date.
         
         1987 – Beloved, Toni Morrison
         
         Morrison’s searing, backbreaking book tackles slavery, motherhood, and death in perfect prose. It’s probably the best book from the last 50 years. Your torn-out heart will haunt you for at least that long.
         
         1988 – Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
         
         Mary Gaitskill is the patron saint of the modern woman. Her debut collection is raw and sexy and frankly burning up with intelligence
         
         1989 – Geek Love, Katherine Dunn
         
         This novel is supremely uncomfortable, exceedingly bizarre, and at times has the potential to upset the most ironclad of stomachs and hearts. This is why it is a masterpiece.
         
         1990 – The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
         
         You probably read this in school, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t wonderful. A groundbreaking, now-classic meditation on war and memory.
         
         1991 – Possession, A.S. Byatt
         
         A literary mystery, a campus novel, a love story, and an investigation into the complex world of art and knowledge, all in one volume.
         
         1992 – The Secret History, Donna Tartt
         
         It’s hard to throw Jesus’ Son under the bus here, so if it cools your mind, consider it a tie. But Tartt’s debut is such a perfect campus novel, so palpably beautiful with all its pagan rituals, elusive love affairs, dead languages, and youths both murderous and studious, that it slinks into your mind and colors your vision for years to come. It must not be ignored.
         
         1993 – The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
         
         E. Annie Proulx is an understated master, and her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning novel, a darkly funny treatise on the American family, bubbling with unforgettable characters, is good evidence.
         
         1994 – The Ice Storm, Rick Moody
         
         An audacious and witty dissection of the American family for anyone who has ever had impure thoughts.
         
         1995 – Sabbath’s Theater, Philip Roth
         
         Arguably Roth’s best novel, and less arguably featuring one of the most disgustingly loathsome characters in fiction, Sabbath’s Theater is stuffed to the leaking brim with depravity, brutality, wild masturbation, and then, inexplicably, tenderness. It’s hilarious, and horrible, and a great book.

         

   
   1996 – Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
   
   Screw 1996. This was the best novel of the decade. Not only is Infinite Jest challenging, hilarious, frustrating, and heartbreaking, but as the years go on, it only seems more prescient, more appropriate, more dangerous.
   
   1997 – Underworld, Don DeLillo
   
   Here’s another candidate for the Great American No...vel, a complex, ambitious book about American life in the latter half of the 20th century. Nonlinear, affecting, and (like so much of DeLillo’s work) incredibly adept at capturing the feel of our everyday American surreality.
   
   1998 – Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
   
   Lorrie Moore is the Flannery O’Connor of contemporary letters, the funniest, darkest female voice of short fiction, leading a parade of impersonators in her wake. This collection is sharp and strange and a little sideways – just how short fiction should be.
   
   1999 – Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
   
   Coetzee’s harrowing, Booker Prize-winning novel of a disgraced professor and his daughter in post-apartheid South Africa is terrible and beautiful, delving into exploitation and love and loss and the meaning of humanity. It’s no surprise that he won the Nobel Prize for Literature just a few years after its publication.
   
   2000 – Pastoralia, George Saunders
   
   There were many fantastic books published this year (see below), and the one that makes this list was neither the biggest selling nor the most extensively covered. But George Saunders is a national treasure, and this collection may be (no promises) his best. In any event, he is one of the few writers today who seems to know the way forward – however icky and strange that way might be.
   
   2001 – Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald
   
   All of Sebald’s work straddles a misty, perhaps imaginary line between fiction and nonfiction, between history and present, memoir and biography. His books are dreamy, digressive, haunted by memory, each inviting endless submergence. “I feel more and more as if time did not exist at all,” our eponymous Austerlitz says, “only various spaces interlocking according to the rules of a higher form of stereometry, between which the living and the dead can move back and forth as they like, and the longer I think about it the more it seems to me that we who are still alive are unreal in the eyes of the dead.” Both gorgeous and important.
   
   2002 – Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
   
   Eugenides’s greatest novel is a multi-generational family epic, a love letter to Detroit, and an essential exploration of youth and difference. It’s also probably the best novel ever to tackle intersexuality.
   
   2003 – The Known World, Edward P. Jones
   
   This startling, complex novel tackles an oft-ignored topic: the world of black slave owners in antebellum Virginia. Unflinching, finely woven, and sometimes devastating, it’s a must-read. The judges of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award agree.
   
   2004 – The Epicure’s Lament, Kate Christensen
   
   There may have been one or two More Important books published this year – but there weren’t any more delicious, delightful ones. Be kind to yourself and pick up Christensen’s electric, hilarious novel, featuring one of the most memorable and most lovably unlikeable characters in recent memory.
   
   2005 – Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link
   
   Link’s stories are complex works of realism/fantasy/horror, sometimes cheeky, sometimes serious, always surprising and dreamlike and smart. Salon once described her writing as “an alchemical mixture of Borges, Raymond Chandler, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and well, there’s just no better way to put it than that.
   
   2006 – The Road, Cormac McCarthy
   
   2006 was a good year for books indeed. Most essential is probably McCarthy’s The Road, the epitome of the harrowing post-apocalyptic novel, which takes so many risks, not least in its language, and cuts to the marrow.
   
   2007 – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz
   
   This book has been anointed with many prizes, but not without good reason. Díaz has one of the strongest voices in contemporary fiction, a rough-edged one, a slightly slick one, an essential one. All that aside, this is a great story (or set of stories) with a cast of characters you won’t forget this century.
   
   2008 – Dangerous Laughter, Steven Millhauser
   
   Millhauser’s collection is a relative sleeper, which is why it makes the list. Millhauser is beloved by many writers and readers, but he should really be more of a household name, in particular for his stories, which are restrained and glistening explorations of strangeness, each one wilder and closer to home than the last.
   
   2009 – Lit: A Memoir, Mary Karr
   
   The always excellent Mary Karr’s latest work is both a memoir and a deconstruction of the memoir, a master class in the form. That aside, Karr’s voice is what makes her work so particularly wonderful: acerbic and matter-of-fact, but deeply felt, honest, humble, a brilliant mind at work behind a smart aleck’s grin.
   
   2010 – A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
   
   Egan’s most recent novel won the Pulitzer, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a host of gushing accolades from just about everybody with two working eyes. Concerned with past and future, self-destruction and self-creation, family and self, and, of course, Powerpoint, it’s a pretty good candidate for the Great American Novel of the 21st century.
   
   2011 – Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan
   
   Pulphead is one of the most perfect essay collections to be published in recent memory. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll marvel at Sullivan’s brilliance and verve, at the mundanity and insanity of the secrets he uncovers.
   
   2012 – Building Stories, Chris Ware
   
   Ware’s Building Stories was a sensation last year, and with good reason. As the physicality of the book is changing, it’s important to celebrate the writers who push at the boundaries of what’s possible, what’s satisfying, what makes a good story. Ware has always done so, and never more than in this overgrown, epic graphic novel.
   
   2013 – The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner
   
   It’s hard to tell which contemporary novels will stand the test of time and which will be forgotten by this time next year, but Kushner’s The Flamethrowers, with its fiery prose and breadth of purpose, is a solid bet. At the very least, it’s this reader’s favorite novel so far this year.
   
   2014-"What Makes A Great Leaders" Engr Femi Francis Akinsiku.
   
   I love to see people succeed with their life. As the artist treasures his painting and the master craftman the quality of the violin that God created. So our Maker cherishes the dream, goals, excellence of life and the happiness you and I are to enjoy. Through searching diligently for principles for successful living. I was suddenly made aware of these two foces: The great leaders and their principles they set in motion. The combined power of these two influences i call the way of the winner. Winners are simply ex-losers who got mad. They got tired of failures. The day you get angry at failures is the day you start winning. Winning doesn't start around you-it begins inside you. Happiness begins between your ears. Your mind is the drawing room for tomorrow's circumstances. What happens in your mind will happen in time. Mind-management is the first priority for overcomer. The Great leadership follow contain the wisdom for living. circle today's date on your calendar. Declare that the happiness and most productive days of your life are beginning today! I wrote this book for you. I pray that each page will give added edge you need to make your life happier and more fulfilling than ever before.