Changes to Newtown Presentation

Dear NIOA Member,

For 23 years, the NIOA has prided itself on delivering an exceptional training conference with outstanding speakers. You can expect the same top-notch experience in Clearwater in less than two weeks.

On very rare occasions, we are forced to scramble due to a particular speaker’s cancellation. We were informed by Connecticut State Police Lieutenant Paul Vance last week that the Commissioner of his agency had ordered a halt to ALL presentations regarding the Newtown mass shooting until the State’s Attorney for that area issues the final report on the tragedy. The NIOA has done everything possible to seek an exception from the Commissioner that would allow Lt. Vance to join us in Clearwater. The leadership of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, at the NIOA Board’s request, advocated on our behalf with Connecticut officials. We have spoken on the telephone with the Commissioner this week and have exchanged direct emails. In the end, he decided that the presentation moratorium must remain in place for now. Lt. Vance, who sincerely regrets these circumstances, will not be joining us in Clearwater due to the directive from his superiors.

I am, however, very pleased to inform you that we have secured a presentation on the media relations aspects of the Newtown shooting case.
Amanda Raus, a reporter with NBC Connecticut (WVIT-TV) was highly recommended by Lt. Vance. Ms. Raus just tonight received the necessary clearance from her employer and will speak to us on Monday morning, August 26, about the Newtown incident. In preparing her presentation, Ms. Raus will be in contact with Lt. Vance.

The situation with the Connecticut State Police is beyond the NIOA’s control. Ours is one of several presentations across the country that have been put on hold. Nevertheless, we are extremely grateful to Ms. Raus for agreeing to substitute at this late date. We know that her presentation to us will be meaningful and informative.

Your Board of Directors looks forward to seeing all conference attendees in Clearwater very soon.

Safe travels,

Don Aaron
Past President Emeritus & Board Member
National Information Officers’ Association

Defining Social Media ROI

From time to time, I’d like to share content and information that I think might help NIOA members with their communication efforts.

Recently, the Hobson and Holtz Report (ForImmediateRelease.biz) podcast provided audio of Katie Delahaye Paine’s presentation at the Sixth Annual New Communications Forum. This was held in San Mateo, California April 20-23, 2010.

The audio is a bit rough in places, but the content may be very helpful to you as you try to determine your time, effectiveness, investment and the cost of using social media.

You can download the FIR podcast (mp3, 21.9Mb, 54:47)

Download a copy of Paine’s Powerpoint presentation.

Many thanks to Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson for their work in providing communicators with information such as this.

More about Katie Delahaye Paine, as provided on the podcast website:

Katie Delahaye Paine is the founder and CEO of KDPaine & Partners LLC, a New Hampshire based research consultancy that provides measurement and accountability for corporations, non-profits and government agencies world wide. Her book, “Measuring Public Relationships: the Data-Driven Communicator’s Guide to Success” was published in December 2007. Paine is the publisher of KDPaine’s Measurement Blog and The Measurement Standard, the first blog and the first newsletter for marketing and communications professionals dedicated entirely to measurement and accountability. Prior to launching KDPaine & Partners in 2002, Paine was the founder and president of The Delahaye Group, which she sold to Medialink in 1999.

For the past two decades, Paine has been providing marketers and communications professionals the tools, data and information to help them make better business decisions. She and her firms have read and analyzed millions of news articles, blogs, newsgroup postings and internal communications and have conducted hundreds of thousands of interviews in the relentless pursuit of quantitative and qualitative measures of her client’s marketing success. She works with some of the world’s most admired companies and organizations including Raytheon, MADD National, and Juniper Networks. Most recently, her endeavors have been focused on social media measurement as well as providing cost effective measurement programs for non-profits, universities, small businesses and government agencies.

Katie’s full biography is available from the KDPaine & Partners website.

AMBER Advocate Available

From Mike Tellef, NIOA Past President

The mission of the AMBER Alert program is to develop and coordinate the efforts of law enforcement, transportation, and the media to increase public participation in safely recovering abducted children through targeted education, increased communication, and effective sharing of resources. To help keep those lines of communications open and to ensure that you as a PIO/PAO are up to date below is a link to the 13th Edition of the AMBER Advocate.

www.amber-net.org/Documents_WordExcel/AA13_Web.pdf

There is much more information on the AMBER web site at www.amber-net.org/

The NIOA has long been involved with AMBER, having nvited them or people we heard speak through them, to present at our annual training conference. The NIOA also provided members to be part of the pilot class for AMBER and the Media in January 2006.