Mack the Flack

Old habits die hard.

Habits help us through our day by eliminating the need to think about each and every step involved in ordinary tasks. Old habits are also notoriously difficult to break, especially bad ones like smoking and jaywalking.

But as communications devices and methods become more sophisticated some old style communications habits seem worthwhile.

Mack still uses a pen and paper to scribble notes before hitting the keyboard, he forgoes his computer’s digital calendar for a leather-bound appointment book, he uses yellow sticky notes to remember tasks and he still reads a printed newspaper every morning.

Does this make him and PR folks like him out-of-date in this new media world? Hardly, it helps him to accomplish routine tasks so he can better focus on the truly important things. Like repeatedly unsuccessfully loading the same software, hunting for misfiled emails and searching endless blogs and news websites for a specific story about a piano-playing cat.

Learn old and new communication habits in the SFU PR Certificate program. wppcert@sfu.ca

PR folks love facts.

We love interesting facts (rubber duck races raise millions of dollars for charity), we love did-you-know facts (the world’s largest rubber duck race, the Great British Race, involves 250,000 ducks), and we love fun facts (all the ducks from the Great British race would fill a local stadium so many times).

PR folks love facts for one reason. Journalists, bloggers and tweeters love them. It’s a great way to get the media’s, the online world’s and the public’s attention.

Mack rarely comes across a fun fact he doesn’t like but the other day he noticed a news story with a big fake fact – a fact one of Mack’s PR colleague’s calls “Things that make you go hmm.”

The fake fact – this summer’s Pride Parade in Toronto drew one million attendees. That’s 1,000,000 people crammed into a 2 km parade route in downtown Toronto. That’s one-fifth of the population of Greater Toronto.

A smart reader of Macleans.ca points out that fitting one million people into a 2 km route would require 25 people for each square metre of space, “…which four to five times as many as would physically fit”. In reality you can fit a maximum of seven people per square metre, and it’s very cozy.

So what’s the real fact? A maximum of 280,000 people crowded the very popular Toronto Pride Parade based on the parade route’s total surface area.

Learn about the use of facts, fun and serious, in the SFU PR Certificate program. wppcert@sfu.ca

SFU PR students complete a three week on the job practicum as part of their studies. Mack wanted to share an edited version of PR Program grad Christina Toth’s practicum report.

Monday – Met my Fraser Health supervisor at the opening of a brand new health centre in Surrey. The Minister of Health and lots of Communications, PR people from Ministry were there.

Tuesday – I began composing speaking notes for a residential care director for a Friday morning opening of a new residence in Burnaby.

Wednesday – Sat in daily issues meeting in a.m., go over items PR staff should know about: i.e. minor flooding in one hospital unit; upset patient who threatens to go to CTV.

Thursday – Hand over speaking notes for Friday event for speaker to
review and massage.

Friday – Go to opening of renovated residence in Burnaby. Less formal than Monday event, but ministry also involved. Health Minister there and I meet more people from Fraser Health, more education on how everyone works together. These people are really into health care. Get lost trying to leave Burnaby.

That evening I was t-boned by a 17-yr-old girl who was talking on her cell and drove through a red light. I’m fine except for muscle ache but my vehicle is bunged up and I have it towed.

Later my daughter gets a call from her friend, who lives on a dairy farm outside of Mission. Her friend is home alone when she discovers a $30,000 cow who has somehow impaled herself up on a 7 foot metal pole. The friend, who is 5′5″, stacks a bunch of very heavy bales of hay under the half ton cow but the cow still can’t get off the pole. She sends her dad, who was at an awards banquet, a cell photo of the cow. He rushes home. Dad uses his tractor to pluck the cow off the pole. The cow is patched up and is fine.

Learn more about the cool practicum portion of the SFU PR Certificate program at wppcert@sfu.ca

Photo idea – an impaled cow, of course.