Judges Needed! Classics Committee Announces New Judging Partner, Judging Dates
Get a leg up on awards season this year by judging Utah PRSA’s Golden Spike Awards. Minnesota PRSA is partnering with a new chapter this year, and because of the timing of Utah’s awards program, we will judge their entries in September. Our awards program cannot continue without judges, so we need your help!

Plan to come and bring a colleague. Judging provides new ideas and further insight into developing your awards and planning for 2009, and the sessions are a great networking opportunity. All judges will receive special recognition at the Minnesota PRSA Classics banquet in March 2009.

Opportunities to participate

Time: Friday, September 12, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. *
Where: Weber Shandwick, , Suite 400, , 55437
*Breakfast will be served and parking is free

Time: Thursday, September 18, 12 - 4 p.m. *
Where: Exponent, 400 1st Avenue North, Suite 700, Minneapolis MN 55401
* Lunch will be served. Hourly-fee parking is available in Ramp B or C, or on the street.

Please RSVP to Rachel Studinger () or Amy Smith () indicating the date/location you are available. A one hour minimum commitment is preferred.

Minneapolis brand agency Yamamoto Moss Mackenzie has hired Callie Myers as a project manager.

Callie joins the agency from Target, Minneapolis , where she was an in-store marketing logistics coordinator. Previously, she worked as an associate account manager at Axiom Marketing Communications, Bloomington , and completed internships with Clarity Coverdale Fury and WCCO-AM, both in Minneapolis .

Callie holds a B.A. from the University of Minnesota ’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and studied Spanish and Costa Rican social history at the Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica .

We are so thrilled to have so many of you joining us tomorrow at the 3rd Annual Alphabet Bash!

Haven’t yet registered for the Bash? Not to worry,
you can register onsite at the venue.

This year’s Bash is filled with amazing food, over 30 door prize giveaways and a new location to celebrate the Twin Cities marketing, communications, public relations and creative professionals.

The Bash’s new home is located right off of 1st Ave North
Epic Event Center
110 North 5th Street



Parking Information
Due to construction on the new Twins stadium, there is some extensive road construction taking place near Epic Event Center. We are advising all attendees to park in the “B Ramp” located directly across the street from Epic. You will find access to this ramp located on 5th Street North. The “C Ramp” is also located about 3 blocks from the venue.

Visit the ABC Parking Web site for additional information, driving directions and maps: http://www.abc-ramps.com/directions.aspx

The B and C Ramps

Get a map here.

Breanna Wagner, a consumer PR veteran formerly with Golin Harris / Chicago and known for managing signature accounts for Unilever, SC Johnson, the Florida Department of Citrus and General Mills, has joined Twin Cities-based Kohnstamm Communications.

Wagner's high-profile campaigns and new product launch experience features familiar brands including Glade, Breyers, Good Humor and Popsicle, often involving L.A. celebrity events and generating media impressions totaling in the hundreds of millions. Previous consumer brand campaigns include work for OfficeMax, Buffalo Wild Wings, Buca, Pillsbury's Kemps ice cream, and Marshall Fields for the Maccabee Group, the last of which generated an IABC Gold Quill Award for best special event that featured "the world's largest box of chocolates." Most recently, Wagner was in-house director of marketing for the new Ivy Spa Club in Minneapolis.

There is an interesting article in MinnPost today by John Reinan that discusses the increasing ability for companies to place "articles" in publications that look like articles but are actually advertisements. The article points out that as newspapers cut their staff the need for quality information still exists and companies like ARAnet can provide that service at a fraction of the cost.

To me this is reminiscent of the on-going Video News Release debate of yester-year. Are companies still using VNRs, yes. Will some companies choose to use services like ARAnet, of course. Like so many ethical questions, it won't become a public issue until someone abuses the system. What do you think?

---

Response from ARAnet:
With our ARAcontent product, what we’re doing is conceptually no different than sending an editor a press release with the hope that they will craft a story out of the content in the release, we’re just providing it to them in article form. Like a press release, we do generate the articles on behalf of our clients, but editors of publications and Web sites always have the last word in what gets published. If editors believe it’s too commercial, they won’t run it.

With our Adfusion product, articles carry a sponsored content designation and are not represented as a news story. Quite simply, the Adfusion articles we make available give consumers more in-depth information than typical ads can provide, and provide a link for the consumer to click to Web sites to get more information. Our clients pay for the clicks to their Web sites -- a smart, content-rich form of online marketing.

In other words, our marketing tools are highly ethical, straightforward and within the PRSA Code of Ethics.

-Scott Severson
President ARAnet

The Saint Paul Public Library will host Mark Halperin and Susan Estrich early next week as part of Saint Paul-itics, a program series to inspire the public to get politically involved and informed.

Mark Halperin, author of TIME.com’s The Page (http://thepage.time.com) and political analyst for ABC, will speak at 7 p.m., Monday, Aug. 18 at Founders Hall Auditorium, Metropolitan State University, 700 East Seventh Street, Saint Paul. Halperin will talk about covering the 2008 election and providing perspectives from the frontlines.

Halperin recently wrote The Undecided Voter’s Guide to the Next President, and the co-authored of The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008.

Susan Estrich, a political expert who frequently appears on Fox News, will talk about the 2008 election and what’s at stake at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 19, at Founders Hall Auditorium, Metropolitan State University, Saint Paul.

Estrich was the first woman to run a national presidential campaign, the first female president of The Harvard Law Review and the youngest woman to be tenured at Harvard Law School.

Saint Paul-itics will:

• Create an informed citizenry and provide a forum for Saint Paul residents to discuss the democratic process.
  
• Help Saint Paul residents find ways to connect to the national excitement and interest in the Twin Cities that hosting the RNC will create.
  
• Create opportunities for those interested in politics to connect to others with like interests and to expand their base of knowledge.

For more information you can visit, www.SaintPaulitics.org.

OFFERS LOCAL MARKETING, COMMUNICATIONS PROS UNIQUE NETWORKING OPPORTUNITY
WHAT:

Minnesota's popular annual gathering of professionals in marketing and communications, the Alphabet Bash, will take place on August 21 at Epic Event Center in Minneapolis. The Alphabet Bash aims to connect marketing, communications, advertising, and public relations professionals in Minnesota and give them an opportunity to help them to make business connections, develop long-lasting relationships, explore other business development opportunities – or just have a good time.

The third-annual Alphabet Bash is presented by:

* IABC: International Association of Business Communicators
* PRSA: Public Relations Society of America
* AMA: American Marketing Association
* Ad Fed: Advertising Federation of Minnesota
* MWMC: Minnesota Women in Marketing and Communications

All attendees will receive drinks, heavy appetizers and a chance to win door prizes including Sun Country airline tickets.

A Pre-Networking Workshop also will be available to interested attendees. Barb Krantz Taylor of The Bailey Group will share practical networking tips to meet others who are authentically interested in knowing you and how to sustain those relationships after the Bash. Registration is an additional $15 and includes an extra drink ticket. Space is limited.

WHEN:

Thursday, August 21, 2008, 6 – 10 p.m.; Pre-Networking Workshop: 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

WHERE:

Epic Event Center, , Minneapolis

REGISTRATION:

Cost is $45 for PRSA, IABC, AMA, Ad Fed and MWMC members, $55 for nonmembers and $30 for students. The Pre-Networking Workshop is an additional $15. Register online at .

On the front page of today's Wall Street Journal is a story about Kendra Wilkinson and her professed love of Olive Garden. What's the problem?

Wilkinson is a Playboy cover model and Olive Garden doesn't approve of her endorsement of their Chicken Parmigiana.

Talk about making a non-issue into an issue. By complaining about Wilkinson endorsing the company, Olive Garden has brought it straight to the front page of the WSJ and an audience that otherwise may never have been exposed to Wilkinson and her love of Italian/Americana cuisine.

Entertainment sites like Gawker and Radar may be expected to comment on this issue, but for it to end up on in the Wall Street Journal brings the issue to a whole new level.

Ms. Wilkinson's quote in the Journal sums it up best:

Ms. Wilkinson says that when she started praising the restaurant on television and on page, it never crossed her mind what the folks at Olive Garden might think. "I don't speak about it to get paid for it," she says. "I speak about it because I love it. I understand they're a family restaurant, but I think it can't hurt them to have a little spice."

As PR practitioners we are all well aware of the fact that big events can derail otherwise good PR campaigns. Has this year's Olympics overridden anyones news worthy PR campaign? Comment below.

Coloplast has selected Beehive PR to provide public relations for its North American corporate headquarters project and its U.S. ostomy, urology and continence care, and wound and skin care groups. Coloplast is a global leader in the development of healthcare products for individuals with deeply personal and private medical concerns.

Beehive PR began working with the Denmark-based company earlier this year to announce Coloplast’s new North American headquarters campus in Minneapolis. Beehive has since partnered with Coloplast’s specialty care groups on a range of media relations and Web-based marketing strategies to support key product launches and educate consumers on healthcare policy initiatives.

The business unit of announced that The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has retained the Minneapolis-based agency to handle its media planning and buying.

"The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is striving to be among the world leaders in the advancement of healthcare for children," said Dick Hurrelbrink, chief executive officer at Compass Point Media. "Compass Point Media is proud to be a partner in helping them to achieve that goal."

Compass Point Media will start work with The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia immediately. This will be the second new business win for Compass Point Media in the past six months having also recently won the SUPERVALU consolidated media account.

Compass Point Media is a media planning and buying unit within Campbell Mithun, serving both full-service and media-only clients. Compass Point media provides a complete spectrum of highly effective and efficient media services to a wide variety of companies and categories.

"Our singular goal is to create success for our clients via pioneering ideas," said Steve Wehrenberg, chief executive officer of Campbell Mithun. "We’re proud of our long-standing strength in innovative media planning and buying, and we look forward to creating pioneering media ideas for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia."

The following post is courtesy of:

PR professionals are big consumers of information. Whether it’s staying up-to-date on industry news and trends, researching media pitches or searching for client coverage, there is always a lot to monitor and track.

The growth of the Internet and now, social media, has meant that the number of media channels and the volume of data available have grown exponentially; there’s more information out there than you can ever consume. It can be extremely overwhelming; what if you miss something important?

Here are a few tips on how to keep on top of data consumption and leverage social media tools in your everyday PR activities.

Conducting research
Looking to keep up-to-date on what’s hot with the public? Social bookmarking sites such as Reddit and Digg provide a good indication of what people are currently interested in.

I have a tendency to sign up for email newsletters/alerts from online publications but, the truth is, I usually end up filing the emails unread because I never have time to read them. If you’re like me and have the best intentions when it comes to reading all the great industry articles in these e-newsletters, subscribe to RSS feeds instead. This is a much more efficient way of reading up on industry news and trends and removes the need to constantly file, store and delete emails from your archives. There are many feed aggregators out there, but I personally use .

Monitoring Coverage
The Internet is so huge that it can be a daunting task to keep track of every single client mention. Sign up for email and grab RSS feeds for your client’s name, brand or keywords from , , MSN Live and Technorati. It’s also important to monitor what’s being said about your company or client in the social media space. Twitter allows you to sign up for RSS feeds for specific names or keywords.

Organizing your data
Make sure you create folders within your RSS feed reader so that you can segment your feeds by client, keyword, industry, etc. This will help you find the information you’re looking for easily and efficiently. is also a great tool to help you find specific information stored on your hard drive, just in case your elaborate filing system fails you.

ARAnet, Inc., an innovator in delivering copyright-free feature articles to newspapers and Web publishers, is expanding the breadth of its content with the launch of a video distribution service, announced company president Scott Severson.

ARAnet clients can now distribute informational videos to complement their online articles. Videos will appear in tandem with their companion articles on select ARA partner sites. The video distribution service will be free to clients in conjunction with any standard article campaign until Oct. 31, 2008, Severson says. Videos will be how-to in nature, offering informative, educational experience for viewers, who will perceive the videos as an organic extension of the article.

“ARAnet’s new video distribution service provides our clients with a powerful new tool to help them tell their marketing story and connect with consumers at a visceral, visual level,” Severson says.