Friday, October 31, 2008

Changing Lanes on How We Think About Commuting

by Lori Martin & Helen Vollmer, VOLLMER Houston

With elections about over, workloads returning to normal following a horrendous hurricane year on the Gulf Coast, a domestic financial fallout and the upcoming holiday season, we are, thankfully, easing into our familiar patterns of driving to and from the office or on errands. And while we all welcome a return to the familiar, on one front, this is not the time to fall back on old habits. Now, more than ever, is the time to continue to challenge ourselves to change how and when we drive along our streets and freeways. Our individual transportation habits can truly change our quality of life both personally and collectively as a community.

At least in the greater Houston area bus ridership is up and a recent pledge initiative of the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) and the East Harris County Manufacturer’s Association, My Solution Is . . . that began in August to get citizens to try alternatives to commuting solutions has resulted in thousands promising to finding solutions that better fit their needs. From bundling trips to riding our bikes to teleworking, the way we get around our communities is, in fact, changing.

While our pocketbooks currently have a reprieve from $4/ gallon gasoline, that high price at the pump was a grand wakeup call that the money we save by carpooling or riding the bus is a solution with benefits. Not only can we save dollars on gas, the wear and tear on the vehicles themselves adds up to substantial savings. According to the H-GAC, commuters can save up to $6,500 on gas and other expenses, including maintenance and care insurance. According to AAA’s Your Driving Cost survey, it costs 71 cents per mile to operate a car for every 10,000 miles driven. In fact, the same study suggests that each individual driver spends an average of $54.10 for every 100 miles driven. In a time when we’re all watching our spending, frankly, this kind of saving amounts to pennies from heaven.

H-GAC anticipates that by 2035, the Houston area will have approximately 3.5 million additional residents, 61 percent of whom will live in currently unincorporated areas. And while area governments, planning agencies, and the private sector are aggressively exploring ways to lessen congestion and travel times for the future, this is truly the responsibility of every individual in our community. Each of us can make a difference immediately by realizing that when we drive one person to a vehicle, we are part of the problem, not the solution. By carpooling when we can, walking to the store and using Park ‘n Ride facilities as a matter of course, we are making our community a better place to live.

There is no silver bullet when it comes to the transportation challenges we all face . . . each of us has a responsibility to take action. And we no longer can assume that government or industry can solve these issues for us. This is no longer “somebody else’s problem;” this takes a personal commitment.

So as the weather gets cooler and you plan your holiday errands, challenge yourself to change old habits and think before slipping behind the wheel. You’ll be surprised to see what choices and what incentives we all have when you break old habits.

Top Tips for Managing Projects and Teams Across Offices

by Amanda Borichevsky & Denisha Stevens, VOLLMER Dallas and more!

For more than a dozen years VOLLMER has served as the Agency of Record for the popular online travel site, Travelocity. During this time both VOLLMER and Travelocity have grown and founded offices across the country.

Today the collective team includes Travelocity domestic contacts in New York, Dallas, El Paso and San Francisco, while VOLLMER team members reside in New York, Dallas, Indianapolis and Houston.

So, how do we manage to stay connected, work efficiently and keep the creative juices flowing? Following are tips from the combined Vollmer / Travelocity team on working across multiple offices in a truly dynamic industry:

  • Don’t Hang Your Hat on Email - It’s important not to forget the value of voice-to-voice communication when you work in a long distance environment. Communicate major directional changes and deadlines via conference calls and reserve the minor details for e-mail, otherwise things can get lost in translation.
  • Watch the Clock - Take time zones into consideration and determine prime times for conducting team conference calls. You want to be fair to everyone and avoid having calls that require team members to stay late or work through lunch. Also, it can help you catch everyone at their most productive time of day.
  • Creativity Through Competition - Before conducting a brainstorming session, give team members background information and ask that they come to the table with at least one starter idea. Then, tap into everyone’s competitive spirit by seeing which office contributes the best ideas. For us, there’s nothing like a little East Coast vs. West Coast rivalry to get the creative juices flowing. Of course, for those of us located in the middle, we always have an edge.
  • Divide and Conquer - Take turns leading initiatives so everyone has a chance to flex their leadership muscles. Even better, let individuals from different offices partner together to lead special projects or initiatives. In addition to creating a sense of camaraderie between offices, it gives everyone an opportunity to learn how to lead teams long distance.
  • Be Accessible – To avoid endless games of phone tag when coordinating with colleagues in other offices, make it a point to set aside time each day to check in, answer questions and catch up. Before long, it becomes a natural part of your day and it seems like they are just down the hall.
  • Share Water Cooler Talk – Important updates and new ideas often are shared through hallway conversations, so it’s all too easy to leave out your long distance team members. Don’t forget to keep everyone updated on the little things.
  • Give Everyone a Voice - Make sure everyone gets a chance to voice their opinion on group calls by creating an agenda in advance. There’s nothing worse than participating in a call and feeling like you can’t get a word in. If this is a consistent problem for some team members, just put them in charge of leading the next call or give each person a section to lead.
  • Remember the Fun and Games - It’s important to get together a couple of times a year to have a little fun and get to know each other. Over the years we’ve attended happy hours, New York musicals, spa days, Vegas shows, team dinners and Halloween costume contests. We’ve even given out silly awards and pulled pranks on one another. These shared experiences have helped form relationships that enable us to function as a more cohesive and productive team.

‘Tis the Season to Go Viral

by Jimmy Egeland, VOLLMER Dallas

There he sits among dozens, seemingly lost in the crowd. He is just one of many now, no real identity. His metallic ink and snowflake design stood out so prominently once, but somehow in the throng of corporate greeting cards sitting on table his sheen seems dulled, his luster lacking. In a week, maybe two, he will be tossed in the trash. Never to be remembered. Never to be missed. He will be gone. Forever.

This is the life of a corporate greeting card and this sad scenario takes place quite frequently in the U.S. According to the Greeting Card Association, two billion holiday cards are mailed out every year, each with the same fate: the trash can. This translates into more than 250 million pounds of post-holiday greeting card trash. That’s a lot of garbage just to say “happy holidays.”
How can you stand out when you say happy holidays, reduce greeting card garbage and keep your holiday message (and brand) ringing long after the New Year?

Viral e-greetings.

Think about the holiday greetings you received last year. Do you remember any of them specifically—and no, that holiday tin of the three different types of popcorn doesn’t count. Any cards ring a bell? No?

Now watch this clip. What are the chances you will remember that next year? Better still, what are the chances you will want to share that with someone you know? If you chuckled, the chances are pretty good. How good?

In 2006 VOLLMER released its second holiday e-card Holiday Brainstorm to the tune of over 200,000 views that year, this coming from an initial distribution list of fewer than 2,500. Through viral distribution it landed on over 30 different Web sites and blogs, winning awards and bringing in new business along the way. Last holiday season—a full year after its release—Holiday Brainstorm was viewed almost 5,000 times in December and January alone. Compare the viewership and staying power with a traditional holiday card and e-card wins in a landslide.

If those numbers don’t whet your appetite, consider the “green” angle. With a focus on environmentally friendly practices, viral e-cards are the way to go this holiday season. It’s pretty simple—no traditional card means no paper, no trash and no waste—so your company is doing their part to reduce holiday waste.

Creating a holiday e-card is easier than you may think. VOLLMER has produced dozens of animations which have cumulative views in the millions. The creative process is completely customized to every client and everything from script writing to voice acting to animation to Web hosting is done in house.

Our process is tried and true, and the client is along for the ride every step of the way. It starts with the script. We write something that is sure to get a laugh. Then we illustrate the characters and scene to ensure you love their look. Next we apply lip synching to all the characters and make sure you not only like what they say, but how it looks when they say it. We follow that with secondary movements like blinking and gestures making sure you give us the thumbs up. After that, we host it and pass on the URL for you to send to your list. We’ll even help create an image to embed in the email and upload it to some of the best viral animation sites around.

Hopefully you will consider this information when you make your holiday greeting decision this year. Remember: greater impressions, less waste and more fun. ‘Tis the season to go viral indeed.

To view more animations by VOLLMER, try visiting these sites:

http://www.vollmerpr.com/holiday.asp
http://www.eco-bunnies.com/
http://www.pinemountainbrands.com/ILogYou/default.php

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Ten Leadership Attributes from Doris Kearns Goodwin

This comes from Doris Kearns Goodwin, noted historian and author - should be a must read for any presidential candidate. The original article appeared in Parade Magazine:

1. The capacity to listen to differing points of view, to let his advisors argue with him, question his assumptions. He created a climate in which people felt free to disagree without fear of consequences.

2. The ability to learn on the job, acknowledge errors, profit from mistakes, withstand adversity, come through trials of fire. Everyone is broken by life, Hemingway said, but some are strong in the broken places. This ability, Stephen Covey argues, literally turns failure into success. It is not our mistakes that hurt us most, but our response to those mistakes.

3. He showed a ready willingness to share credit for success, creating what has been called “an emotional bank account, a reservoir of good feeling. Harry Truman once said: You can accomplish anything in life so long as you do not care who gets the credit.

4. Even more striking than the ability to share credit was his willingness to shoulder blame for the failure of his subordinates.

5. He possessed an acute awareness of his weaknesses which allowed him to compensate for them. Forming a team with his opposite Stanton.

6. He was able to control his emotions. Ritual of writing hot letters hoping if he put it aside he would cool down psychologically and never need to send it. If he did lose his temper, he followed up with a kind gesture immediately.

7. He understood how to relax, replenish his energies, shake off anxiety. Theatre and humor.

8. At crisis moments, his immediate instinct was to go to the battlefield, walk amidst the soldiers, visit the wounded in the hospitals, bolster morale, assess the situation directly. Equivalent to managing by walking around. Indeed, he never lost sight of the people he represented. His White House was open to ordinary people. Sensitivity to currents of opinion allowed him to become a master of timing.

9. He possessed a quiet but steely resolution to stick to his long term goals even at moments when his own popularity was at stake.

10. He had a remarkable ability to communicate his goals to his countrymen, with stories, everyday metaphors, as well as with a beauty of language.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Standing Firm amid Hurricanes and Worse: How to Stay Operational While Blowing in the Wind

Excerpted from The Firm Voice
Helen Vollmer, CEO of VOLLMER and Christine Barney, CEO of rbb Public Relations, recently posted a story about staying operational and surviving when the weather gets a little windy....

As we near mid-October and the rest of the country looks forward to cooler days, those of us who live along the waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf Coast are still mired in the heart of hurricane season. The last several years have seen almost a dozen of these monsters wash across our shores. As recent survivors of Hurricanes Ike and Gustav, we know firsthand that being prepared and communicating often and openly with employees, clients and vendors are the keys to staying operational and functional in even the worse case scenarios.

Of course, it's not just hurricanes we all need to be prepared for—tornadoes, floods, ice storms, health epidemics and the threat of terrorist attacks are just a few more things to keep many of us up at night. As a guide to those whose emergency plans may need a bit of tweaking, we offer the following lessons learned:
  • Plan ahead. Put your disaster planning policies in writing and make sure everyone in your agency knows the drill. Have a disaster planning section on your intranet ready to serve as communication central. Update phone trees, responsibilities and procedures every year. When it comes to phone trees, apply ICE. All employees should have a form on file listing the name and numbers of someone to call, preferably in a different city, that they will be in contact with in case of an emergency. Lastly, business interruption insurance and appropriate "contents" insurance are a must have.
  • Go co-lo. Even small businesses can now afford co-location. For a monthly charge of as low as $500, you can have a totally redundant network ready to go at the flip of a switch. These "bunker" facilities located throughout the country guarantee your network is safe. And, if you use an IP phone system, your calls are routed to voice mails or forwarded to a new number with ease. When the crisis is over, the information is transferred back to your home server with nothing lost.
  • If you don't co-lo, get computer files out of harm's way. Run a complete back up of your files, make multiple copies and send to other offices within your jurisdiction, to colleagues within the industry you trust as well as for yourself and IT staff.

Read the rest of the story at The Firm Voice - click here.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Keys to Building a Powerful Integrated Marketing Campaign

VOLLMER CEO and founder Helen Vollmer was a presenter at the Bulldog Reporter PR Summit in New York City on October 2, 2008. The following are tips she and fellow panelists-- Barri Rafferty from Ketchum and Andrea Coville from Brodeur Partners - distributed to and discussed with the audience. A handy list for any PR professional to keep near by:

1. THINK LIKE A MARKETER, NOT A PR PERSON.
* What do I want?
* Who can give it to me?
* Why should they?

2. BE A TRENDSPOTTER.
* Research what the public is talking about, doing, engaged in
* Ask what will they be doing next based on this?
* Add twists to leverage popular culture, economic interests and globalization

3. KNOW YOUR CLIENT'S RESOURCES AND BUILD UPON THEM.
* Do they have data to leverage?
* Do they have a volunteer base?
* How are they willing to spend financial resources?

4. SOMETIMES WHAT'S OLD IS NEW AGAIN.
* Engage the audience personally
* Get touchy/ feely with stunts, trials, grassroots events, causes

5. USE NEW MEDIA, BUT DON'T FORGET TRADITIONAL.
* Google, Facebook, YouTube, twitter, etc.
* The strength of SEO
* Broadcast and print still work - bureaus, wires and freelancers even more important

6. KEEP IT SIMPLE.
* Evaluate all the tools in your tool kit, but don't use them all
* Try to not add to the clutter out there-peoples' brains can't hold it all

7. DESIGN A PROGRAM THAT CAN BE BUILT UPON LONG TERM.
* Build a core
* Add extensions to it to keep audiences engaged over an extended period

8. "YOU CAN'T BORE PEOPLE INTO BUYING YOUR PRODUCT"
* David Ogilvy got it right.
* No matter the industry, you must make the campaign compelling, entertaining and distinct

9. CREATE PARTNERSHIPS TO BUILD CREDIBILTY AND SAVE COSTS.
* Your client doesn't have to be front and center each step of campaign

10. WORK AS A COLLECTIVE TEAM WITH THE CLIENT'S OTHER MARKETING ENTITIES
* Advertising, sales, promotions, media and beyond

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Get On Your Bikes and Ride!


The VOLLMER New York office has been busy. If you don't believe us, look at the list of hits for the MS Bike Ride held over this past weekend. We love the Big Apple!

NY1: http://www.ny1.com/Default.aspx?ArID=86736

Q104.3: http://www.q1043.com/pages/onair/jonathanclarke.html

WCBS 880: http://www.wcbs880.com/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=2958405 - Mike and Cat’s interview

WCBS 880: http://www.wcbs880.com/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=2961360 - Chris Hennessey and Shasha’s interview

A1trails.com -Link

About.com -Link

Asbury.planetdiscover.com-Link

Blurt-online.com-Link (Article about local band, Yo La Tengo participating in BIKE MS)

Charityofhappenings.org -Link

Dailyrecord.com Link

Hellonewyorkcity.com Link

Internweb.com - Link (Listing for interns to help with BIKE MS)

Examiner.com -Link (Article about local band, Yo La Tengo participating in BIKE MS)

Mainstreet.com-Link (Article with some of the most beautiful/ challenging stretches of roads in the U.S. mentions BIKE MS 2008)

Nyc.gov Link (Volunteer opportunity)

Nycupandout.com Link

Nyse.com Link

Othermusic.com Link

Pedaling.com Link

Qgazette.com Link

Queenscourier.com Link

Sewamazin.com Link

Timeout.com Link

Topix.com Link

Trekofbrooklyn.com Link

V2v.net-Link (A Starbucks Community website)

Velonews.com -Link

Weather.blogs.foxnews.com Link

The Tasting Room Steps Up

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, VOLLMER client The Tasting Room in Houston stepped forward to help neighbors in need:

Ike 101 for the Little Ones

Once Hurricane Ike had passed, VOLLMER was able to secure television coverage from experts at DePelchin Children's Center on talking to your kids about the devastation and destruction in and around the Houston area:

Children Susceptible to Stress after Ike KRIV/Fox 26/Houston

Helping Kids with Hurricane Ike KHOU-TV/Ch. 11/Houston