The NIOA Board members are working hard to prepare for the 2011 conference in Phoenix, Arizona. We know that there are budget concerns for many agencies, travel monies are few and some agencies are not providing funds for training.

We also believe that this conference is the finest conference available for PIOs to hone their skills, receive new insights to help them improve themselves as PIOs and therefore benefit their agencies, and of course, to build networks with others that can help when help is needed.

As past NIOA Presidents have done, I am providing a letter for members to share with their chief or administrator to help show the value of the annual training conference. Please download, print and present it to your leaders so that they might better understand the overall value of this conference.

We look forward to seeing you in Phoenix.

Jack Goldhorn
2010-2011 President
NIOA

   We have been getting a number of emails kicked back from our membership due to bad email addresses and unacceptable emails directed to certain email domains.

  Please take time to check your email address on the NIOA website by clicking on this link http://www.nioa.org/members/search.htm and confirming that your contact information is correct. If it is necessary to update your information please click on this link to submit your updated information http://www.nioa.org/members/update.htm

   If your information is correct please ensure that you allow the address NIOA@comcast.net to your list of Safe senders. You may have to have your domain administrator to set these permissions.

The NIOA Board members are working hard to prepare for the 2010 conference in Clearwater Beach, Florida. We know that there are budget concerns for many agencies, travel monies are few and some agencies are not providing funds for training.

We also believe that this conference is the finest conference available for PIOs to hone their skills, receive new insights to help them improve themselves as PIOs and therefore benefit their agencies, and of course, to build networks with others that can help when help is needed.

As past NIOA Presidents have done, I am providing a letter for members to share with their chief or administrator to help show the value of the annual training conference. Please download, print and present it to your leaders so that they might better understand the overall value of this conference.

We look forward to seeing you in Clearwater Beach.

Marlee Boenig
2009-2010 President
NIOA

Enclosure: 2010 NIOA President Letter to Chiefs

Fraser Seitel discusses what it takes for PR people to find success, make money, be appreciated by management and much more.

Today I attempted to send emails to new members. In many ways, this attempt failed. It has been a practice for some time that the president of the NIOA send a letter of welcome to the newest members.

I have found over the past year that more than half of the emails that I attempt to send to new members are rejected by the receiving agency for various reasons. The most common reason is that the email address on record simply doesn’t exist. Executive Director Lisa McNeal tells me that much of the handwriting on the membership application forms is very hard to read.

The second most common reason that messages are returned is that the recipient agency requires that emails be “whitelisted” before acceptance. Some organizations automatically reject email addresses not in their accepted list.

This situation does not exist solely with new members. Much of the correspondence that the Board of Directors sends is bounced back to us. We have looked at several ways to better communicate with members, but we need to ask the following:

1. Be sure that your information is accurate and up-to-date. Find your info in the member directory (password protected section). If anything at all needs to be corrected email the changes to Lisa McNeal at nioa@comcast.net. Be sure to put your first and last name in the message so that she can find your record more easily.
2. Enter the email addresses of the Board of Directors and your regional director into your whitelist. You are missing key messages throughout the year if these cannot get through your postmaster system.

We want to help you get value from your membership. If you are not in the communications cycle, it is possible that you are missing some great information about your organization. Thank you for helping us communicate with you.

I found an article this morning on Tech Dirt that I found to be very interesting. Perhaps you will find it interesting, as well. This blog post compares print and online journalism. They are most certainly similar, but of course, they are not the same. I’m not surprised that some comments include words such as “rumor” and “factual” when they discuss the merits of one form of journalism over another. It also didn’t surprise me to see that there were comparisons such as “real-time processing” and “batch processing.”

The comment thread includes good conversation about the concepts in the article. I enjoyed the quick remark by one writer who said, “I guess you get the journalism you pay for…”

You might find this article interesting. It also includes video (not necessarily work safe) from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show.

The NIOA board members have worked hard this year (and continue to do so) to prepare for the 2009 conference in Nashville. We know that there are budget concerns for many agencies. We know that travel expenses are tight and that some agencies are not providing funds for “extra” training.

We also believe that this conference is the finest conference available for PIOs to hone their skills, receive new insights to help them improve themselves as PIOs and therefore benefit their agencies, and of course, to build networks with others that can help when help is needed.

In past years the NIOA presidents have presented a letter for members to share with their chief or administrators. This letter helps to show value for the annual training conference. I have provided a letter for you to use, this year, as well. Please download, print and present it to your leaders so that they might better understand the overall value of this conference.

We look forward to seeing you in Nashville.

As we move toward the Nashville conference we must also prepare for a new year for the leadership of the NIOA. Nominations for Secretary and also for Vice-President are being accepted. The deadline for submissions is fast approaching.

Here is a quote from VP Marlee Boenig as it appeared the March/April 2009 issue of the NIOA News:

With the conference comes the important matter of electing officers. At this year’s event, we’ll be holding elections for Secretary and for Vice-President. The NIOA Secretary serves a two-year term, while the Vice-President serves a one-year term as VP, followed by a one-year term as President and a one-year term as Immediate Past President.

If you’re interested in running for either of these positions, you MUST declare before June 1, 2009. A Letter of Intent, a short biography and a photograph must be submitted to your Regional Director [or any member of the executive board] and Don Kelly, our outstanding NIOA News Editor, before June 1. This allows the membership time to get to know the people running for office so they can make an informed decision at election time.

Now is your opportunity to get involved in the NIOA. If you’ve been waiting on the sidelines for the perfect moment, here it is. If you’re not interested in running for office, that’s perfectly ok. Instead submit an article for the newsletter, make a worthwhile suggestion to improve our organization or encourage someone to join that isn’t already a member. There are tons of ways you can support the NIOA. Just find your place and help make the NIOA even better.

As most readers of my content will know, I am a huge advocate of using social media to enhance your efforts in communicating.  I also know that there are “growing pains” when using this still-fairly-new set of tools.  Consider securing your agency’s name with some of the major social networking sites, whether you will be actively participating in the arena or not.  Monitor online activities (Google alerts, perhaps?) to find out what is being said about your agency — and to catch those items that may be said “on behalf” of your agency.

To some extent, I feel that we may be somewhat negligent if we choose to totally ignore these services and the social media environment. By blocking them from your routine you may effectively be letting others have your voice. Does it make our jobs more difficult? Perhaps. It could save you and your organization a tremendous amount of time and money (and headaches) trying to correct problems that result from lack of attention.

Here’s a post from Ragan.com that I found very helpful and interesting:

Is the real you on Twitter? Persona hijackers can taint your ID or brand

By Ari B. Adler

Using your name and image, frauds can have a little fun — or wreak a lot of havoc

Folks in Austin, Texas, may have thought they had a direct line into the mind and tactics of their local police department via Twitter, the online micro-blogging service. “Warming up my radar gun,” was one of the tweets posted at “Austin PD,” which also used the official city seal.

In March, however, the 450 followers of the account found out “Austin PD” was a fraud as officials worked to have it shut down. Although the fake tweets appeared to be mostly joking in nature, not everyone whose identity has been misappropriated on Twitter has been so lucky.

Matt Friedman, co-founder of Tanner Friedman public relations agency in Farmington Hills, Mich., said someone “used our company name to post disparaging and vindictive tweets about us. We are now trying to get our name and the ID from Twitter, so we can start using it for our own business.”

According to Twitter’s terms of service, “Using a company or business name, logo, or other trademark protected materials in a manner that may mislead or confuse others may be considered trademark infringement.” The company claims that accounts with clear intent to mislead others will be immediately suspended. Of course, they have to be reported first.

For Mike Flacy, a content manager for several consumer electronic Web sites at Internet Brands in El Segundo, Calif., that meant contacting Twitter’s terms of service team to claim an impersonation violation.

“After I got to the correct department, I was quite surprised how easy it is to reclaim a Twitter account that’s been brand-jacked,” Flacy said. He noted that it took about 48 hours for the Twitter account to change ownership after he sent them an “official” company e-mail, which is one that contains the domain of the site in the address.

“As far as I can tell, Twitter has no safeguards for protecting brands,” Flacy said. “Anyone can register for a name without actual affiliation to a company. Companies should really be vigilant in pursuing brand-jacked Twitter names, even if they don’t plan on using it.”

Vigilance also paid off for Amanda Mullin, of Hanser & Associates in Des Moines, Iowa, when her client, Megabus.com, became the victim of Twitter ID theft.

“Megabus.com’s name and logo were being used on Twitter by an individual posting incoherent, incorrect, and expletive-filled information about them,” Mullin said. “We would see random tweets that would be declaring ticket prices to cities that Megabus.com doesn’t serve, with choice expletives included.”

Mullin said her firm found the problem when doing research to prepare their client’s Twitter account. They were able to get the problem resolved and have now started the real Megabus Twitter account.

Twitter’s soft underbelly was easily exposed by Fake-Twitter.com, a service launched in March that allowed you to make a fake status update to anyone’s Twitter stream, with the update looking as if it had been posted by the account holder. The site, which claimed later to be a social experiment, was taken down in mid-April after an official request from the real Twitter.

Sometimes it’s not your Twitter account that’s at risk, but the feed that results from it.

Megan Fitzgerald, a personal branding coach from Rome, Italy, said her Twitter feed was hijacked by someone using Plaxo, an online network that allows you to associate your Twitter account with your profile.

“Anyone can claim any Twitter handle. Plaxo even prompts the user with suggested handles and never requires a password to claim it,” Fitzgerald said. “Someone has claimed my Twitter handle, which means my tweets show up on their Plaxo feed, and people will assume that she is the one posting these tweets.”

Plaxo’s terms of service read, “If you believe that any material on the site infringes upon any copyright which you own or control, you may send a written notification of such infringement to our designated agent.”

Fitzgerald said she has spoken with Plaxo representatives “at length,” and they claim they can do nothing about her hijacked Twitter feed.

“They don’t seem to have changed their policy regarding claiming Twitter accounts. It’s a pretty bad situation,” Fitzgerald said. “Frankly, I am shocked that Plaxo has been so unwilling to help or do anything about it.”

Sometimes, fake Twitter accounts are so obviously bogus that it’s clear the tweeter behind it is merely out to have fun. That’s why you can follow Jesus Christ, God, and Darth Vader. Other famous names, however, have been followed by fans duped into believing it was the real thing when it wasn’t. These include Oprah (before she really joined), Ewan McGregor, the Dalai Lama and Keith Olbermann, the outspoken host of MSNBC’s “Countdown,” who subsequently stamped Twitter with his nightly “Worst Person in the World” designation.

There are a number of ways to track potential Twitter impostors, and even if you’re not tweeting yet, you should be monitoring these search engines. The main Twitter search engine is www.search.twitter.com, where you can search for keywords, names, or phrases. There’s also www.tweetgrid.com where you can do the same thing but have multiple searches under way in many different boxes across your screen.

And there’s www.twazzup.com where you can see tweets, related links, pictures, and other Twitter-based items connected to your search phrase. Of course, if you want to expose a fraud, you should get a Twitter account of your own. That way, you can start replying to anything the fraudulent tweeter posts with corrections, warnings, and links to the real you.

The Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year via the standard phishing scams, dumpster diving, and plain old-fashioned theft. Though most people are concerned primarily about their Social Security numbers and credit ratings, the more recent online tactic of “brand-jacking” may pose an entirely new realm for law enforcement to address. In the meantime, it’s every twitterer for himself in trying to defend personal or corporate brands and warn their friends.

“I tweeted that people should claim their Twitter account,” Fitzgerald said. “It would be nice for this situation to be broadcast in a bigger arena so more people know to protect their online identities.”

Ari B. Adler is a media relations professional with experience as a newspaper reporter and editor as well as a government and corporate spokesperson. He is the communications administrator for Delta Dental of Michigan and an adjunct instructor at Michigan State University. You can follow him on Twitter at @aribadler.

I found this interesting post today:

If one were to ask any given selection of police departments across the country what they are doing to stay in touch with their citizens, he would receive a mixture of responses but my guess would be that a few or more of them would be that they don’t stay in touch. When asked why, they would provide more mixed responses such as: “why should we?”, “we can’t fund the required technology”, “we don’t have the time”, etc.From Christa Miller’s site, Cops 2.0, Apr 2009
Attributed to Brandon Perkins, Chief, Tyrone, GA Police Department

If you have time, you might want to read the entire article. There are some interesting things happening that will let PIOs reach out to their communities.