FILE - This Oct. 3, 2011 file photo shows NFL football Commissioner Roger Goodell answering questions from the media after speaking about concussions at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, in Washington. The NFL moved Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012 to try to shut down lawsuits filed by thousands of former players who say they suffered or fear suffering permanent brain injuries from football-related concussions, calling the issue a "labor dispute" that should be resolved not by courts but by terms of the collective bargaining agreement. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - This Oct. 3, 2011 file photo shows NFL football Commissioner Roger Goodell answering questions from the media after speaking about concussions at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, in Washington. The NFL moved Thursday, Aug. 30, 2012 to try to shut down lawsuits filed by thousands of former players who say they suffered or fear suffering permanent brain injuries from football-related concussions, calling the issue a "labor dispute" that should be resolved not by courts but by terms of the collective bargaining agreement. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? The NFL moved Thursday to try to shut down lawsuits filed by thousands of former players who say they suffered or fear suffering permanent brain injuries from football-related concussions, calling the issue a "labor dispute" that should be resolved not by courts but by terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
The players accuse the NFL of negligence and say league officials concealed known medical links between concussions and brain injuries, leading many of them to suffer from dementia or Alzheimer's disease, or be at an increased risk of reckless or suicidal behavior.
In a motion to dismiss the suits filed late Thursday, the NFL argues that the collective bargaining agreement covers safety and health rules ? while delegating to each team decisions about a player's condition and when they should return to play. And the league said the suits lack any specific proof of concealment.
"To the extent that plaintiffs have a claim addressing injuries incurred during their NFL careers, that claim may only proceed pursuant to the grievance procedures set forth in the CBAs," the motion said.
About 140 NFL concussion lawsuits have been consolidated in federal court in Philadelphia before U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody. Unless Brody agrees to dismiss them early on, or an umbrella settlement is reached, she will likely decide what evidence can be used at trial, whether a class can be certified for medical monitoring and other pretrial issues. The cases might then return to their home district for trial.
According to an Associated Press analysis, 3,377 players have sued the NFL, charging that not enough was done to inform them of the dangers of concussions in the past, or to take care of them today. That tally includes at least 26 Hall of Famers. There are 5,249 total plaintiffs, including spouses, other relatives and player representatives.
The lead plaintiff in an early concussion lawsuit filed last year, former Atlanta Falcons safety Ray Easterling, committed suicide in April at age 62. An autopsy found he had the degenerative brain disease CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy. His widow remains a plaintiff.
Other players have told The Associated Press that they were put back into games after devastating hits, and were fed painkillers by team doctors before games to mask their pain.
Tony Dorsett, the Heisman Trophy winner and former Dallas Cowboys star who played in the NFL from 1977-88, attributes his memory problems to the hits and concussions he suffered in his 12-year career, including one that knocked him out cold in a 1984 game against Philadelphia. He nevertheless returned to the field, he said.
"Did they know it was a concussion?" Dorsett, a plaintiff, asked rhetorically in an AP interview. "They thought I was half-dead."
Doctors now say the regions of his brain that control organization and memory are not getting enough oxygen, Dorsett said.
The league said that at least two federal courts have agreed that the collective bargaining agreement dictates a player's right to compensation for injuries, once in a suit involving the late Dave Duerson, who killed himself last year.
The Minnesota Supreme Court likewise refused to let the widow of Vikings lineman Korey Stringer pursue a wrongful death suit after he died of heatstroke following a 2001 practice, on grounds the claim was trumped by the collective bargaining agreement. Stringer's wife later settled with the NFL over a negligence claim.
The league, meanwhile, insists that player safety has long been a priority.
"Any allegation that the NFL intentionally sought to mislead players has no merit. It stands in contrast to the league's actions to better protect players and advance the science and medical understanding of the management and treatment of concussions," the league said in a statement earlier this year.
___
Associated Press news researcher Judy Ausuebel and projects editor Brooke Lansdale contributed to this report from New York.
Chinese banks are selectively rolling over debts owed by local government financing vehicles (LGFVs), provided that these LGFVs have sustainable cash flow and good collateral, according to?First Financial Daily.
One source from Industrial and Commercial Bank (ICBC) said that the bank is effectively rolling over and restructuring some of the debts owed by LGFVs so long as the value of the collateral remains above the loan value and that the project is 60% or more completed.? Meanwhile, Bank of Shanghai said they have been rolling over LGFVs debts, and in some cases extending more credits, if the LGFVs in question have sustainable cash flow.
One Shanghai?s LGFV, Shanghai Chengtou, for instance, has recently obtained a RMB20 billion credit line with Bank of Shanghai.? Incidentally, this very LGFV bears the same name of another Shanghai?s LGFV which was reportedly asking banks to roll-over its debts last year?(although last year, they emphatically denied that they have requested any roll-over or attempted default, whatever).
However, the report suggests that as the?China?Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) ordered banks to manage the credit risks of LGFVs, banks are only helping LGFVs which are in good financial condition (such as thsat mentioned above). Meanwhile, LGFVs are turning to the bond market and trusts companies for financing as banks are not as willing as they were to lend. Sources cited in First Financial Daily even said that trusts are currently the biggest source of financing for some LGFVs in Tianjin in others. But as I said,?trust companies?are part of the shadow banking system, and these trust products may turn out to be financed indirectly by banks, sometimes possibly off-balance sheet.? As?local governments are currently pushing out a lot of massive plans for investment projects?to stabilise economic growth, funding requirements will probably increase in the near-future. We believe that as long as the central government is willing to let all these projects to go ahead, banks will remain the key for funding these projects. At the present moment, however, some believe that the massive funding requirement from new projects and repayment of previous loans may force some local governments into borrowing from trusts.
The fact that banks might be rolling over debts is not new.? Early this year,?Financial Times reported?that Chinese banks were asked to roll over debts owed by LGFVs.? In other words, some of these LGFVs which are unable to repay principle on their loans are having maturities extended to avoid becoming non-performing.? The fact that some presumably bad debts are being rolled over instead of being classified as bad debts contributed to the?low non-performing loans ratios at major banks that have announced results, in my view. ?Ultimately, many of the LGFVs will be unable to service their debts no matter what, rolling over debts merely delays the problems of massive non-performing loans from becoming official.
I also read something related from?Yangcheng Evening News?regarding banks possibly rolling over the debts owed by steel companies.? Based on the first half results of these steel companies, besides the fact that short-term loans are all increasing:
? more and more companies? cash flow statement are showing similar numbers for? the items ?debt repayment? and ?cash raised from new loans?, as though old debts were being swapped into new debts.? For example, Magang raised RMB21.92 billion from new loans, and repaid RMB22.59 billion.? Ling Yuan Iron and Steel raised RMB2.8 billion from new loans, and repaid RMB2.93 billion?
Apparently, according to the report, quite a number of steel companies are reporting similar phenomenon where new loans and debt repayments deviated by less than 10%, and it seems that the last time this happened was in 2009.
This is almost anecdotal, thus, take that with a grain of salt.
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PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Most doctors treat Lyme disease with antibiotics for two to four weeks after diagnosis, but if symptoms persist after that, medical guidelines recommend against antibiotic retreatment. That recommendation may not be warranted. A newly published statistical review of the four studies upon which those guidelines are based reports flaws in design, analysis, and interpretation that call into question the strength of the evidence against retreatment.
Allison DeLong, a biostatistician at Brown University's Center for Statistical Sciences and lead author of the study published online Aug. 19, 2012, in Contemporary Clinical Trials, said the four studies do not prove that retreatment does not work. That questionable interpretation, however, has led doctors to forgo treatment and insurance companies to withhold reimbursement.
"The goal of the paper is to clarify what was actually found from these clinical trials and what could be said and what couldn't be said," DeLong said. "A lack of evidence should not be used to deny treatment when the studies have serious flaws."
Evidence in the trials is most often inconclusive, she and three co-authors found. Two studies even found some statistically significant benefits from antibiotics.
DeLong has been curious about Lyme disease retreatment for more than a decade since a friend of hers seemed to benefit from therapy. Her friend paid for the treatment out-of-pocket. Statisticians would call that anecdote an "n of 1," but the example stuck with DeLong as more people, including journalists, began to question whether retreatment really was ineffective.
In 2009 and 2010, DeLong and her colleagues decided to look into the matter with full statistical rigor. Their analysis started by scanning the medical literature for any randomized clinical trials offering evidence of the efficacy of antibiotic retreatment for Lyme disease. Careful review of more than 100 studies ultimately whittled the field down to the four studies on which the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American Academy of Neurology are based their guidelines.
The most influential studies were conducted by Klempner et al., and published together in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2001. The multicenter trials enrolled chronic Lyme sufferers with positive or negative blood serum results for Immunoglobulin G, an antibody that might indicate active infection. In each of the IgG positive and negative groups, patients either received IV antibiotics followed by oral antibiotics or IV placebo followed by oral placebo. Their symptoms were measured along the way using a subjective set of health quality-of-life measures called the SF-36.
Although Klempner et al. found no significant benefit to retreatment, findings from subsequent SF-36 studies in chronic illnesses provide evidence that the Klempner study was looking for unrealistically large differences.
"The trials, as designed, called for treatment effects considerably larger than the minimum clinically important differences (MCID) identified in other chronic illnesses, suggesting that the sample sizes were inadequate and the trials were very likely underpowered to detect the true underlying MCIDs," DeLong and her co-authors wrote in the journal.
Klempner's statistics showed that treatment might or might not have been effective given the broad range of a statistical measure known as the confidence interval, DeLong said.
In another of the four trials conducted by Krupp et al., researchers found that retreatment produced a significant benefit for fatigue, but the authors of the study mistakenly discounted that result, DeLong said.
The authors became concerned that their results were tainted by too many subjects realizing that they were receiving real treatment instead of the placebo. The measure of fatigue is subjective and could be influenced by that realization. But DeLong found that the subjects weren't likely to have realized anything. Here's why: If the members of each group have a blindly optimistic seven in 10 chance of believing that they received real medicine, then the people who really were would be right seven out of 10 times and the people receiving the placebo would only be right 3 out of 10 times. The people receiving the medicine would seem like they had discovered their status, but in reality they were only making a lucky, optimistic guess.
While the Krupp study was adequately powered to measure a significant benefit from fatigue, it had less power to measure the two other treatment effects it considered: improvements in cognitive processing and clearance of a potential Lyme disease biomarker, DeLong said.
The last of the four studies, by Fallon et al., had a very small sample size. It found hints of some benefits from retreatment but nothing definitive either positively or negatively.
Ultimately, DeLong said, the best evidence to support or refute antibiotic retreatment will come when scientists develop a definitive test for active Lyme disease infection. In the interim, it is possible that chronic Lyme disease patients harbor an ongoing infection that antibiotics could treat.
"The interpretation of the trials goes too far," she said. "You can't say it's been shown that retreatment is not beneficial. You can't then jump to the conclusion that this shows there is no persistence of infection."
###
In addition to DeLong, the paper's other authors are statistics graduate student Barbara Blossom of Colorado State University, Dr. Elizabeth Maloney of Wyoming, Minn., and Dr. Steven Phillips of Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Lyme retreatment guidance may be flawedPublic release date: 30-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Orenstein david_orenstein@brown.edu 401-863-1862 Brown University
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] Most doctors treat Lyme disease with antibiotics for two to four weeks after diagnosis, but if symptoms persist after that, medical guidelines recommend against antibiotic retreatment. That recommendation may not be warranted. A newly published statistical review of the four studies upon which those guidelines are based reports flaws in design, analysis, and interpretation that call into question the strength of the evidence against retreatment.
Allison DeLong, a biostatistician at Brown University's Center for Statistical Sciences and lead author of the study published online Aug. 19, 2012, in Contemporary Clinical Trials, said the four studies do not prove that retreatment does not work. That questionable interpretation, however, has led doctors to forgo treatment and insurance companies to withhold reimbursement.
"The goal of the paper is to clarify what was actually found from these clinical trials and what could be said and what couldn't be said," DeLong said. "A lack of evidence should not be used to deny treatment when the studies have serious flaws."
Evidence in the trials is most often inconclusive, she and three co-authors found. Two studies even found some statistically significant benefits from antibiotics.
DeLong has been curious about Lyme disease retreatment for more than a decade since a friend of hers seemed to benefit from therapy. Her friend paid for the treatment out-of-pocket. Statisticians would call that anecdote an "n of 1," but the example stuck with DeLong as more people, including journalists, began to question whether retreatment really was ineffective.
In 2009 and 2010, DeLong and her colleagues decided to look into the matter with full statistical rigor. Their analysis started by scanning the medical literature for any randomized clinical trials offering evidence of the efficacy of antibiotic retreatment for Lyme disease. Careful review of more than 100 studies ultimately whittled the field down to the four studies on which the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American Academy of Neurology are based their guidelines.
The most influential studies were conducted by Klempner et al., and published together in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2001. The multicenter trials enrolled chronic Lyme sufferers with positive or negative blood serum results for Immunoglobulin G, an antibody that might indicate active infection. In each of the IgG positive and negative groups, patients either received IV antibiotics followed by oral antibiotics or IV placebo followed by oral placebo. Their symptoms were measured along the way using a subjective set of health quality-of-life measures called the SF-36.
Although Klempner et al. found no significant benefit to retreatment, findings from subsequent SF-36 studies in chronic illnesses provide evidence that the Klempner study was looking for unrealistically large differences.
"The trials, as designed, called for treatment effects considerably larger than the minimum clinically important differences (MCID) identified in other chronic illnesses, suggesting that the sample sizes were inadequate and the trials were very likely underpowered to detect the true underlying MCIDs," DeLong and her co-authors wrote in the journal.
Klempner's statistics showed that treatment might or might not have been effective given the broad range of a statistical measure known as the confidence interval, DeLong said.
In another of the four trials conducted by Krupp et al., researchers found that retreatment produced a significant benefit for fatigue, but the authors of the study mistakenly discounted that result, DeLong said.
The authors became concerned that their results were tainted by too many subjects realizing that they were receiving real treatment instead of the placebo. The measure of fatigue is subjective and could be influenced by that realization. But DeLong found that the subjects weren't likely to have realized anything. Here's why: If the members of each group have a blindly optimistic seven in 10 chance of believing that they received real medicine, then the people who really were would be right seven out of 10 times and the people receiving the placebo would only be right 3 out of 10 times. The people receiving the medicine would seem like they had discovered their status, but in reality they were only making a lucky, optimistic guess.
While the Krupp study was adequately powered to measure a significant benefit from fatigue, it had less power to measure the two other treatment effects it considered: improvements in cognitive processing and clearance of a potential Lyme disease biomarker, DeLong said.
The last of the four studies, by Fallon et al., had a very small sample size. It found hints of some benefits from retreatment but nothing definitive either positively or negatively.
Ultimately, DeLong said, the best evidence to support or refute antibiotic retreatment will come when scientists develop a definitive test for active Lyme disease infection. In the interim, it is possible that chronic Lyme disease patients harbor an ongoing infection that antibiotics could treat.
"The interpretation of the trials goes too far," she said. "You can't say it's been shown that retreatment is not beneficial. You can't then jump to the conclusion that this shows there is no persistence of infection."
###
In addition to DeLong, the paper's other authors are statistics graduate student Barbara Blossom of Colorado State University, Dr. Elizabeth Maloney of Wyoming, Minn., and Dr. Steven Phillips of Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Migraine is a type of headache that often occurs on one side of your head. Accompanied by visual disturbances, nausea and photosensitivity, migraine is considered to hinder the sufferer?s everyday activities significantly. Factors like alcohol, nicotine, stress, sleep pattern variations, lack of sleep or exposure to bright lights for a long time can all trigger a migraine attack. Even certain foods can trigger an attack, such as pickles, legumes, fruits, caffeinated drinks, chocolate and aged cheese.
How does Migra-Cap works?
Most of the migraine sufferers complain that bright lights are the major triggering factor for their migraine headache. When you wear a Migra-Cap, it blocks all light so that it does not reach your eyes. Some people must have suggested you to apply a cold pack in the area of your pain. Migra-Cap also applies cool therapy with the help of gel packs to different areas of your head, including your eyes, forehead, in and above ears, upper neck and back of your head. There is a hole in the top of the cap, so that you can pull your hair through it if you have long hair.
Advantages of using a Migra-Cap over other migraine remedies
The best thing about Migra-Cap is that it does not involve any medication to give you temporary relief. Instead of fighting against migraine symptoms, it simply reduces exposure to factors that lead to the problem. Another advantage of this natural therapy is that it is 100% safe for the patient, as it does not at all cause any side effects. The gel packs are designed in such a way that they stay cool for surprisingly long period of time.
You can store your Migra-Cap in a freezer or refrigerator, depending on how cool you want it to be. If you choose to store it in a freezer, the gel packs will not freeze and will stay flexible. Migra-Cap is comfortable to wear, even if you are sitting in a recliner, or lying on your side or back. Although the cap covers your ears, you can still hear your surroundings.
Whenever you contact a doctor, he gives you medicines to relieve the symptoms. But most of the migraine medicines have serious side effects too. Therefore, it is important to find out a migraine treatment which does not include consumption of any drugs. Migra-Cap from Migra Cap Americas Inc. is one such way of getting instant relief from an attack, that too without taking any medicines. This natural remedy makes use of complete darkness and cold therapy to provide relief from a migraine attack.
Brian Mirinda is the author of this article on Drug Free Migraine Relief. Find more information about Migraine headaches
Plant your lawn in layered horizontal segments for the most visual interest. The tallest plants are typically planted as a background element in the various segments of a landscaping plan. Position your other plants around them varying the height from tallest to shortest as you move away from the central element of a segment.
Check outside of the Internet and large home improvement stores for your plants and materials. You may find botanical centers holding sales on plants. You may even want to ask around the neighborhood or check the classified ads to see if anyone has extra perennials that they are looking to get rid of.
Be neighborly. Landscaping equipment is expensive. Before you spend money on it, see if any of your neighbors are interesting in landscaping their yard as well. If they are, suggest that you split the cost of equipment rental. You could save a lot of money by simply taking the time to be sociable.
Add new mulch to your garden regularly. Mulch helps to keep your plant?s moist, and it can repel insects as well. In addition, it is pretty to look at a freshly mulched garden. You will also slow down the growth of weeds by keeping your garden mulched on a regular basis
A great landscaping tip that anyone and everyone should implement is to sketch out what they would like their landscaping to look like before starting out on any work. Making a detailed sketch will give you something to refer to while you work and it will also give you an idea of what your project will look like upon completion.
Before beginning any landscaping job or even buying any equipment, it is a good idea to have a thorough plan of what you want to accomplish. Be as precise as possible on what features you want to add or remove, so that you will know exactly what needs to be bought to complete the task, and how long it will take.
Before beginning a landscaping project investigate what it might do to your property tax bill. There are a number of projects that can greatly increase the value of your home, which will results in yearly payments via taxes on your landscaped yard. Be sure these costs are something you are willing to incur before you begin.
So you have decided to do some landscaping around your home. One of the first things that you need to do now is to put your plans on paper, before you start purchasing supplies. Begin by sketching the design of your landscaping on a piece of paper. By doing this, you will know precisely what all you need, which will help you plan a budget, and avoid wasting money.
When you are purchasing flowers look for perennials rated for your zone. Annuals are great for quickly creating a colorful flowerbed, but they will need to be planted again the following year. Perennials come back year after year and cut down on the work and expense of maintaining a beautiful flower garden.
Divide your landscaping projects into phases. It is very uncommon for people to have enough money to do all of their landscaping jobs at one time. Rather than trying to finish the job in one period, divide the job into different periods and pay for each one as you are able to afford it. This will help you save money while being able to assess and adjust your landscaping if needed.
Your brain should now be swarming with ideas about how you want to change your home?s landscape. Go ahead and use some of the ideas you learned today, but remember to always be on the lookout for new information, as well. You never know what you might come across when thinking of landscaping your home.
To find the top lawn care springfield mo be sure to take your time and choose the right provider for you.
SYDNEY (AP) ? Australia's prime minister on Thursday called the deaths of five of the country's soldiers in Afghanistan ? three killed by an Afghan army colleague ? Australia's worst day in the more than decade-long war.
The Australians were killed in two separate incidents just hours apart late Wednesday and early Thursday.
The first incident took place at a base in Uruzgan province, when a man in an Afghan army uniform opened fire on Australian soldiers, killing three and wounding two, according to Air Marshal Mark Binskin, vice chief of the Australian Defense Force. Hours later, two Australian soldiers died and a crew member was wounded when their helicopter rolled over while landing in Helmand province.
"In a war of so many losses, this is our single worst day in Afghanistan," Prime Minister Julia Gillard said. "Indeed, I believe this is the most losses in combat since the days of the Vietnam War and the Battle of Long Tan. This is news so truly shocking that it's going to feel for many Australians like a physical blow."
The Australians were relaxing at the base when the assailant began shooting at close range with an automatic weapon, Binskin said. Soldiers at the base returned fire, but the shooter scaled a fence and escaped.
The Australians tried to revive their comrades, but the wounds proved fatal, he said. One of the wounded soldiers sustained a serious gunshot wound and was evacuated to another base for further treatment. He is in satisfactory condition. The other was treated at the scene.
The Afghan soldier accused of the shooting is named Hekmatullah, and was working as a night guard at the Afghan army base where the international troops had stopped to spend the night, Afghan officials said. Hekmatullah fired at the Australians as they entered the base in Uruzgan province's Chora district, said Abdulhameed Hameed, an Afghan army commander in the south.
Australian and Afghan soldiers were hunting for the killer Thursday, Binskin said. He would not release further details of the attack, and said the shooter's motive was unknown.
Insider attacks, in which Afghan security forces or insurgents posing as soldiers or police fire on their coalition allies, have been rising over the past year and have surged even higher in the last few weeks. Including the latest strike, there have been at least 34 such attacks so far this year, killing 45 coalition members, mostly Americans. Last year, four Australian soldiers were killed by Afghan troops.
In response to the spike in killings, the U.S. has begun using "guardian angels" ? armed NATO service members who are assigned to watch over any gatherings of NATO troops and Afghan soldiers. Binskin said Australia also uses guardian angels, but he didn't know whether such a soldier was in place during Wednesday's shooting.
Gillard, who in the wake of the deaths will be returning early from a meeting of Pacific nation leaders in the Cook Islands, said security for Australian soldiers had been heightened following the latest attack. She acknowledged the incident was a blow for relations between the two nations' soldiers.
"These insider incidents are very difficult for trust between Australian soldiers and the Afghans that they train. They are corrosive of trust," she said.
Thirty-eight Australian soldiers have been killed in the Afghanistan war, and the latest incidents were the country's worst loss of life in a 24-hour period since the campaign began.
Australia has 1,550 troops in Afghanistan and makes the largest military contribution of any country outside NATO. The Australian soldiers' primary focus is training an Afghan battalion to take responsibility for security in restive Uruzgan.
Australian plans to begin withdrawing troops once the Afghan battalion is fully trained, as early as next year. Gillard said the latest bloodshed would not speed up that timeline.
"Our strategy is well defined, our strategy is constant. And we cannot allow even the most grievous of losses to change our strategy," Gillard said. "We are there for a purpose and we will see that purpose through."
___
Associated Press writer Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
30 Inspiring Front Door Designs Hinting Towards a Happy Home
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The front door can be considered a great opportunity for personal expression, not to mention the ultimate way to grab the attention of everyone in the neighborhood (if this is what you are after). The main entrance to any home can reveal much about the house and its inhabitants, so why not make the best of it? In today?s post, we gathered 30 inspiring front door designs helping you improvise and reinvent your main entrance. There are plenty of key elements that can make your project successful. The pathway or stairway leading to the front door can be added a fresh touch by using flower pots and other creative green arrangements.
The door mat, bell, door knob and door knock can all enhance the look of the main entrance, so try to take advantage of their presence the best way you can. Make a powerful statement by painting your door in a vivid, yet visually pleasing color, well integrated in the overall exterior design of the house. Then add a large street number or some other fun decorations to match the color. Consider outdoor pendant lamps or various lighting solutions to flank the main pathway or stairway leading towards the main door. Have fun going through the photos and let us know if you find them helpful.
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How do PR professionals change their industry?s reputation from spin zone to profit centre? By breaking out of the media relations box and going back to business school, suggests CEO and author Gini Dietrich.
Inside Harvard Business School's Baker Library. Image by Jeff Hester via Flickr.
A few weeks ago I was in a meeting with a prospective client. At the end of the conversation, the chief marketing officer said, ?I see you don?t refer to yourselves as PR pros? and your proposal doesn?t have any mention of it. Why is that??
I explained that when people say they need a PR firm, they really mean they want someone to get them stories, which is an ego-driven metric, and only one tactic of a larger marketing and communications program.
Even though we were ending the meeting when she asked, we ended up talking for another 45 minutes about this new world we live in and what public relations really does for an organization. Which is much more than you think.
What is PR anyway?
Image by Letizia Tasselli via Flickr.
The PR industry has, for a very long time, used media relationsas the example when describing what we do because it?s tangible. Just like you can hold or view an ad, you can hold or view a story a reporter has written or produced.
But while media relations is fantastic for brand awareness and credibility, it doesn?t drive business results unless it?s integrated with other tactics.
And using media relations as ?the thing? the industry does is doing us a huge disservice.
There are many other tactics we use: crisis planning, monitoring and listening, issues management, messaging, creating and telling stories, speaking engagements, content development, events, guerilla marketing, internal communication, social media, lobbying, audits, market research, community development, influencer relations, blogger relations, word of mouth, contests, trends development and more.
Some of us even integrate what might be considered more traditional marketing: e-mail, database development, search engine optimization, trade shows, search engine marketing, inbound marketing, gamification and mobile technology.
When you combine tactics such as these, you have an integrated marketing and communications program that drives results ? real results such as improved margins, shortened sales cycles and increased revenues.
Self-hating PR professionals
But even the new definition of PR that the Public Relations Society of America announced earlier this year doesn?t help the industry:
Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.
It continues to refer to media relations as the only tactic in a communicator?s toolbox. It?s like saying you have to build a house with only one hammer.
So the industry has begun to see a move toward other descriptors of what we do (social media, marketing, integrated marketing communications). Meanwhile, many of us have stopped saying we do PR.
I grew up in a traditional PR firm but I?ve been smart enough to realize organizations will pay for your relationships with journalists only for so long. They soon want to know what?s next and how those relationships will help them grow a business.
That?s something most PR pros don?t know because it requires an understanding of how an organization makes money, the difference between a balance sheet and a P&L, and how margins affect profitability.
Those are things we?re not taught in school. And, unless you run the PR firm or start your own, the closest you?ll get in your career is managing a budget.
Let?s all go to business school
Outside of Harvard's Baker Library. Image by Chris Han via Flickr.
The fact of the matter is, PR pros need a business education. The major needs to move from the liberal arts college to the business school or at least require some business classes before graduation.
Sure, most PR pros are right brained. It?s essential to be creative enough to tell stories in compelling ways, to provide valuable information that helps others do their jobs, and to build relationships on behalf of organizations.
But the PR pro of tomorrow has to fight the black eye and learn everything they can about the business side of things. Otherwise they?ll always be known as media relations specialists. And that?s just not enough anymore.
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Public release date: 30-Aug-2012
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