This is the inaugural issue of The Atkinson Advisor, an e-letter for clients, business partners, colleagues, and friends. Our goal is to provide you with provocative information and insights about communication strategy and business success.

Every issue will have five regular sections.

• "The Idea Of That Thing" (a phrase borrowed from Plato) is where we will offer the latest thinking on reputation management and communication strategy.
• "Next Time Try This" offers short, practical tips on communications and other business subjects.
• "For The CEO" highlights the important role that CEOs play in shaping the reputations of their organizations.
• "Hits & Bytes" features an interesting and helpful online information resource you may not have visited.
• "What We're Reading" reviews books we think readers will find useful and thought provoking.

Atkinson chairman Sue Atkinson will also select some of her favorite quotes from a collection gathered over the past 20 years. Her file comes from hundreds of sources. Those in this issue come from the 1993 Parthenon Awards; a 2000 business trip to Cape Town, South Africa; and a May 1996 article in pr reporter.

We will know you find this e-letter valuable if you choose to pass it along to others. We also gladly accept "e-mail address donations" of people you think would like to receive this e-letter. We value your feedback (mknight@atkinsonpr.com) and welcome requests for articles that you would like to see in future issues.

Thank you from everyone at Atkinson Public Relations.

Effective communicators understand how to connect with an audience -- whether that audience is two people or two thousand. A growing body of research indicates "right-brain" thinking is the key to that connection.

The right side is the intuitive, creative, emotional side. It controls how people feel about you and whether they want to work with you or do business with you. People must be comfortable with you in the right brain before they are willing to listen to, understand, or believe the information you deliver to the left brain.

By contrast, the left side is the technical, analytical, rational side. Most business leaders learned to focus more on "left-brain" skills -- facts, figures, ROI, etc. -- early in their careers. However when they reach leadership positions where relationships are as important as technical skills, they need to focus more on the right brain.

 

LEFT SIDE	RIGHT SIDE
Rational Logical Sequential Linquistic Motor Data Analytical	Intuitive Emotional Simultaneous/Holistic Visual Creative Relationships Impressions

Comparisons of Bush and Gore offer a strong example of right-brain influence. Bush's popularity and credibility probably demonstrate his ability to relate to many people (not all!) better in their right brains. Although Gore had a very strong left-brain message for many voters, his ability to reach people in the right side of their brains was potentially less effective than Bush. Click here for a recent article from USA Today about how Bush's informal style pulled international summits down to earth.

Some of us are predominantly left brain -- probably most accountants. Some are predominantly right brain -- like many artists. Others have more balance between left and right. If you don't know where you fall on the continuum, click here to take a short online test.

You have 15 seconds to get across a key point about your company convincingly. Next time try the PREP approach, which stands for "Point, Reason, Examples, Point."

P - State your point

R - Give the reason(s) why you believe or support your point

E - Provide two quick examples to support your point

P - Restate your point to conclude

Here's an example:

P - "I like Coke more than coffee in the morning…

R - …because it's reliable and safe.

E - I know that I am going to get the same great taste with every can of Coke. And, if I spill it on my lap while driving, I won't be scarred for life.

P - That's why I like Coke more than coffee in the morning."

The PREP approach is helpful in preparing for media interviews and during meetings. It helps you quickly state and support a point you want to make.

A CEO's reputation accounts for more than 50 percent of a company's reputation, according to Burson Marsteller's 2001 Building CEO Capital survey. The CEO's impact on the overall reputation has increased nearly 20 percent since 1997 when the survey was first done.

The survey determined the top five drivers critical to building CEO capital:

• Being believable
• Demanding high ethical standards
• Communicating a clear vision inside the organization
• Maintaining high quality top management team
• Motivating and inspiring employees

The survey makes the case for a strong internal communications program led by the CEO. Four of the five top drivers of CEO reputation focus on the organization, its values, and its associates; none of the top five focuses externally.

www.MarketingProfs.com

This website bills itself as specialists "in providing both strategic and tactical marketing know-how to Internet and offline marketing professionals through a combination of provocative articles and commentary."

The site is an excellent resource of information and commentary about marketing. Recent tutorials include "Power Writing for the Web: 10 Golden Rules" and "Does Advertising Even Work?" Marketing professionals also provide insightful perspectives about a number of marketing topics from website optimization to public relations to advertising.

Marketingprofs.com offers free membership and a bimonthly broadcast e-mail about the latest editions to the site.

The Informant: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald

With all the current debate and controversy swirling around the FBI, this true story about the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) international price-fixing conspiracy is a real eye-opener about the agency's challenges when conducting an investigation. Eichenwald is a well respected New York Times reporter whom we at Atkinson got to know when he was covering the HCA story five years ago.

The story begins in 1992 when the FBI stumbled on Mark Whitacre, a top executive at ADM who was willing to act as a government witness for a vast criminal conspiracy spanning five continents. With the help of Whitacre, the FBI made hundreds of tapes and videos of top ADM executives making price-fixing deals with competitors from Japan, Korea, and Canada.

The Informant takes readers through stakeouts, wiretaps, and secret recordings of illegal meetings. It is filled with power struggles throughout ADM, among its board members -- including high-profile chairman Dwayne Andreas, F. Ross Johnson, and Brian Mulroney -- and at the highest ranks of the justice system.

The book has more plot twists than a John Grisham novel when it turns out that the witness, while cooperating with the Feds, had his own agenda he kept hidden from his wife, his lawyer, and the FBI. Whitacre gets sucked into his own world of James Bond antics, imperiling the criminal case and creating a web of lies and deceit.

Let us know what you think.

© Copyright 2002 Atkinson Public Relations