Three tips for handling email overload

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Jennifer Hellickson
Filed Under Social Media & Networking | Leave a Comment

There may be some debate over whether or not email is dead, but take one look at your email inbox each morning, and I bet you’ll beg to differ.

As Peter Bregman reported in his recent Harvard Business Review blog, this affair with email is starting to really affect us in negative ways. According to an article he cited from USA Today, the number of lawsuits filed by employees claiming unfair overtime is up 32 percent since 2008. What’s to blame, in large part, for this increase? Email. And when you factor in devices such as smartphones, which we have with us – and neurotically check – at all times, there’s no denying that it’s quietly infiltrated our personal lives.

His advice for coping? Assign designated times to “bulk-process” emails and set designated non-email times, resisting the urge to constantly check email during these off-email hours.

Now, before we all balk and say that this is completely unrealistic, especially in a service industry such as PR where we’re expected to be on top of breaking news and at the beck and call of clients ‘round the clock – I believe that his is an argument worth hearing. We have to remember that the ability to be available and respond swiftly to inquiries is only one facet of the value that we’re able to provide as PR professionals. Public relations is more than managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics; our focus on building important relationships and relaying vital information back to an organization for analysis and action can have real, measurable impact on the achievement of strategic organizational goals. And this often takes time, focus and uninterrupted thinking.

Consider this, for example: Research in the UK revealed that employees working on a computer typically switched applications to view their emails as many as 30 or 40 times an hour, for anything from a few seconds to a minute. Dr. Karen Renaud, who carried out the study, said quite simply that email has gotten out of hand:

“Email harries you,” she said in an article in the UK’s Daily Mail. “You want to know what’s in there, especially if it’s from a family member or friends, or your boss, so you break off what you are doing to read the email. The problem is that when you go back to what you were doing, you’ve lost your chain of thought and, of course, you are less productive. People’s brains get tired from breaking off from something every few minutes to check emails. The more distracted you are by distractions, including email, then you are going to be more tired and less productive.”

This brings us back to Bregman’s point. He’s not suggesting that we throw the baby out with the bath water and abandon all established email etiquette when it comes to keeping up with the daily workflow. Rather, he’s proposing that we merely try to be more mindful about it. For example, when you set up designated intervals to handle emails, you’ll be working for that express purpose, effectively making you more focused and efficient on the task at hand. We have our heads down during these email-only times, and waste less time transitioning from one activity to another in a blur of information.

The hardest part is resisting the urge to check…and check…and check…which has likely become more of a reflex than a deliberate action. So until you can resist temptation and set up some real boundaries between you, your inbox and your daily to-do list, here are a few ideas to help make the detachment process a little less painful:

1. Stop it at the source. Whenever possible, try to reduce the amount of junk email that enters your inbox on a daily basis. Set up a spam filter, unsubscribe from unnecessary email newsletters and turn off automatic notifications.

2. Realize that hoarding won’t help you. Many of us like to let emails linger in our inbox, keeping them in digital limbo until we decide exactly what do to with them. It’s a matter of personal preference, but if you find that this system just isn’t working for you, try a more aggressive approach with filing and deleting.

3. Think before you hit send. And unless it requires a direct response, don’t do it. Tim Ferris spoke with blogger Robert Scoble about how he stays on top of tens of thousands of emails, revealing that “replying to more people more often — the goal of most people — actually creates more work instead of cutting it down.”

What are your favorite tips for cutting down on email chaos? Please share with us in the comments below!

Tags: Daily Mail, Dr. Karen Renaud, email, Harvard Business Review, inbox, Peter Bergman, Robert Scoble, Smartphones, Tim Ferris, unsubscribe, USA Today

Digital PRoductions – Client Work Highlights

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Vic Miller
Filed Under Digital PRoductions, Social Media & Networking | Leave a Comment

Some folks don’t realize that our agency has long gone beyond traditional PR and offers digital production (in addition to social marketing and training services) that drives our clients’ content and community initiatives – providing creative services from graphic and web design to online video production to integrated community and user-engagement campaigns for all social media platforms. We’re pleased to share some recent examples of digital production work for clients, as part of a new series showcasing our expertise in this area. This month’s focus is on work for enterprise software client, Aternity. Please let us know what you think!

Monitoring BYOD Infographic for Aternity (client)

Infographic by PerkettPR showing new challenges IT organizations face as they widely adopt BYOD policies and allow employees to bring personally-owned devices to the workplace for use and connectivity on corporate networks.

Click image to see full infographic

Facebook Timeline Cover for Aternity (client)

A custom Facebook Cover Photo created by PerkettPR for Aternity Inc., the industry leader in end user experience management solutions for Global 1000 enterprises.

Aternity Product Demo – Mobile FPI (client)

Video production of an 8-minute demonstration of how Aternity’s breakthrough new technology unplugs end user experience management – by going mobile.

Tags: Aternity, BYOD, community management, digital content production, end user experience management, enterprise social marketing, Facebook Cover, Facebook Timeline, infographic, mobile, Mobility, social marketing, Visual.ly, YouTube

“Influencers Who Inspire” Series continues with Alicia Eler, ReadWriteWeb

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Susan Sweenie
Filed Under Interviews, Media, Women in Business & Tech | Leave a Comment

We’re happy to share another powerful interview in our “Influencers Who Inspire” series. Today’s interview is with Alicia Eler, Reporter at ReadWriteWeb. We have always admired Alicia for her in-depth coverage of culture, tech and social media topics – things we are very passionate about here at PerkettPR. Her admiration of technology and its impact on our culture is extremely interesting, as is her experience in moving from the print publishing world to online. She also shares some great tips for PR folks in regards to “courting” journalists.

Alicia is curently a ReadWriteWeb Reporter. Before joining ReadWriteWeb, she was the Associate Editor of MoveOn.org, the Web Editor of Sylvia cartoonist Nicole Hollander’s BadGirlChats.com, and the Arts & Entertainment Community Manager for the Chicago Tribune’s ChicagoNow.com. Her arts writing has been published in Artforum.com, Art Papers, Time Out Chicago, and the Chicago Tribune, among others. She can be reached at @aliciaeler and alicia@readwriteweb.com. See her full portfolio here: http://www.aliciaeler.com

You used to cover arts and entertainment before RRW – do you look for topics that have an art or entertainment-based angle, even in the tech world?

Yes, I always look for an art and/or culture angle. I am interested in entertainment (movies, music, TV) if I can look at a larger cultural trend within. So, for example, I am fascinated by pop culture and the way Justin Bieber has become a celebrity both on social media sites (Instagram, Facebook) but also on a larger, mass media scale.

When it comes to technology, I am interested in looking at the ways it shapes culture and vice versa. We can’t think about Facebook or Twitter without thinking about celebrity; we can’t discuss communication without talking about iPhones and emoji icons. Like a cultural anthropologist, I work best when I immerse myself in the culture and space that I am trying to understand and tease apart.

I am also an excessive user of both mobile and social – I have more apps on my phone than I care to admit. I am fascinated by the culture of “free” – the fact that if we use a platform for free, we are the products. We pay for it with our information, the data that we so willingly provide. I investigate the push and pull between sharing and consuming, particularly as it relates to our increasingly networked culture. What does it mean to live a life on social networks in addition to a physical, offline reality?

How has journalism changed over your tenure in the industry? Or has it?

I started off in the print world. Back then, the idea of publishing an article online seemed both novel and silly. I got paid for what ran in print publications. That was back in 2006. Now, six years later, I write almost exclusively for the Web. As I mentioned above, I prefer to act as a cultural anthropologist working in the realm of social media.

I still write about art that happens offline when I have the time to do so – I cannot give myself emotionally to technology. It is cold, glass, wires and electricity. When I spend too much time online, I start to feel at a loss for meaningful offline relationships.

This is why I prefer to think about social media in a detached way. I see social networking sites as an experiment, not a space where I clone myself and act as me. I am “me” on Facebook.

So, as I was saying, I do write almost exclusively for the Web – but one exception is an essay I am writing about Chicago-based artist Ellen Greene. She came to me through Peregrine Honig, an artist I have worked with over the past five years. Ellen paints raw, intricate vintage tattoo imagery on women’s hand gloves. In her work, she juxtaposes the realms of nature and culture, exploring ideas of motherhood, what it means to be a “hero,” and investigates the possibilities of personal myth making. I have been moved to tears by her work. It is what I think about when I’m not immersed in social networks. I am also fascinated by the work of Danah Boyd, who studies teen tech trends, race and class.

How do you like to be contacted? What makes a great pitch?

I prefer to be contacted either by people I know, people with whom I have mutual friends, or through some sort of smart, witty email or tweet.

I really appreciate formalities and the idea of “courting” a writer – too often I get a bunch of garbage-type press releases. I feel like people think that if they can put together a press release and blast it out to folks they know, they will get coverage. That is not true. I generally ignore or filter out press releases, especially if they are not at all personalized.

My advice to PR people is take your time, do your research and intuit when the best time to approach a writer is. I am someone who remembers everything – so when I meet someone I don’t like, I remember it as much as someone I do like.

When it comes down to it, I am fascinated by people who truly believe that their product/idea/brand is the best thing ever. I like a good salesperson as much as the next guy.

What are PR people NOT doing that they should be? What are they doing that they SHOULDN’T?

Like I said above, PR people should be doing their homework and not sending spammy press releases. Court the writer! Also please do not tell me your sad story about why you need to be covered – there is nothing more unattractive than someone who is desperate.

What do you read for journalistic/industry knowledge and inspiration?

I read Techmeme, my Facebook news feed, Twitter, Tumblr like RappersDoingNormalShit & LesbiansWhoLookLikeJustinBieber, the stuff people post on my Facebook wall. (My Facebook community is awesome!) I love Atlantic Wired, Wired magazine, Buzzfeed, Wall Street Journal Tech, New York Times’ Bits Blog, and my colleagues’ work at ReadWriteWeb. Sometimes I try not to read that much – it’s easy to get caught up in trends and what everyone else is saying. I like to meditate, too.

Do you have any secret ambitions or hobbies?

I collect owl ornaments and figurines. I believe in intuition, serendipity and kismet. In fact, Kismet is my middle name. No, seriously.

What is next for you in 2012?

Becoming ever more immersed in the social networked world, coining new terms that will define this era, meeting lots of artists and creative thinkers/visionaries, travel, hanging out with Mark Zuckerberg. (Hi Mark!)

Tags: Alicia Eler, Chicago Tribune, cultural anthropologist, Danah Boyd, Ellen Greene, Justin Bieber, Mark Zuckerberg, Peregrine Honig, PR pitching tips, Read Write Web, RWW, tech journalist

Happy Earth Day! How PerkettPR Contributes to Improving Our Environment

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Susan Sweenie
Filed Under Agency News, Events, Leadership | Leave a Comment

PerkettPR is proud of our long-standing contribution to improving the environment. As a virtual company, we reduce our agency’s carbon footprint – less gas, less real estate, lower electric bills, less emissions, etc. In addition, we work diligently to create a positive work environment, including the opportunity for all employees to telecommute, offering successful careers balanced with happy home and personal lives. Being able to work a full day and still fit in time for dinner with the family, or an outdoor run before dark, provides PerkettPR employees with greater opportunity to fulfill both career and personal aspirations. We’re proud of our positive culture from both an eco-friendly standpoint and a happy, satisfied staff who share our passion for innovation in the workplace.

We thought it would be interesting to share some new statistics on telecommuting. Did you know that the estimated average commute for workers is 25.3 minutes? And, according to Telework Research, if the 41 million Americans with telework-compatible jobs worked from home just one day, U.S. savings would total $772 million including:

$494 million in commuter costs
$185 million from 2.3 million barrels of oil saved
$93 million from 775 fewer traffic accidents

And that’s not all. If everyone who could work at home did just one day, the environment would be spared 423,000 tons of greenhouse gas—the equivalent of taking 77,000 cars off the road for a year!

We created this Earth Day infographic to showcase our efforts in reducing our carbon footprint – and as an example of how just one small business can work to reduce environmental emissions by offering telecommuting options.

Please feel free to leave a comment about your business and how you also strive to help the environment. Happy Earth Day!

Tags: commute, Earth Day, environment, telecommute, telework, virtual office

Persuasive Picks for week of 4/16/12

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Vic Miller
Filed Under Persuasive Picks | Leave a Comment

When Deborah Sweeney, CEO of MyCorporation, started to run her own business, she never would have guessed that a day would come when she’d be expected to update the internet on her life in 140 characters or less. To help CEO’s aspiring to join the Twitter-sphere, Deborah posts her advice on Becoming a “Corporate Executive Tweeter” on SocialMediaToday.

A strong referral network is imperative for small businesses. Thanks to social networking, businesses can now connect directly with customers, enabling them to market in new more cost-effective ways. MarketingProfs guest blogger Pamela Springer provides some tips to Build a Strong Referral Network to Boost Your Business and parlay those social networks into business opportunities.

Pinterest isn’t only for women – despite its heavy concentration on all things girlie, it’s for guys, too! Pinterest has a growing audience of men who like the site – for many of the same reasons women do explains Jennifer Waters in her latest MarketWatch article Why men like social-media site Pinterest.

Doug Schumacher takes a look at some numbers around Facebook content and what kind is the most shared, and finds that video and photo posts are far more likely to be shared than status updates or links. Find out more of What consumers share on Facebook – and why in his iMediaConnection post.

Tags: business referrals, CEO, CEOs, Content sharing, Deborah Sweeney, Doug Schumacher, Facebook, iMediaConnection, Jennifer Waters, MarketingProfs, MarketWatch, Pamela Springer, pinterest, referrals, small business, Social Media, Social Networking, social networks, SocialMediaToday, Tweeting, Twitter