Press Release Checklist

Business communicators and public relations professionals at one time or another develop materials for the press to communicate, inform, educate and manage crisis events. There is a canonical way to develop a "good" press release such as working with an entire team of seasoned public relations (PR) professionals and leadership to generate an accurate and consistent message. Or simply just gathering facts and dispelling rumors.

How does one create a succinct press release? Leverage tips from the checklist below.

Press Release Checklist

• Take the time to verify all facts for accuracy
  
• Work with management and identify organizational messaging goals
• Determine target audience messaging
• Depending on the situation, create readily accessible online resources for people to view and take action
• Make your message clear and concise
• Brevity is key. Too much information will lead to message overload
• Coordinate the distribution of your message to key target audiences so the data is shared in a consistent manner
• Share your communications team's contact information
• Be receptive  and responsive to media inquiries

Business Lessons I Learned from the Movie “The Intern”

During my career I’ve worked on a variety of jobs and realized that business lessons can materialize from a variety of places. For example, your mentor, manager or friends can inspire you to do great things. You can also learn from your business experience, books such as the collection of Harvard Business Review and maybe a movie or two.

I recently took a break from catching up on work over the weekend to take in a movie titled “The Intern” with some friends. While watching the movie, we saw some resounding business lessons and ended up discussing them at the end of the film. The movie stars Anne Hathaway as the founder of an e-commerce business that recently began hiring senior citizens as office interns. Robert DeNiro plays Hathaways’ office intern.

The light hearted film included everything from the complex office dynamics, teamwork, to inter-generational communications and collaboration that offered a few stark similarities to the federal workforce today.


Read more.