Where:

100 SE Third Avenue

28th Floor

Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

When:

February 2, 2012

11:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m.

Cost:

$30 for members

$45 for non-members

Please include attendee name and company name when registering.

Advance registration is required. Please note: Registration closes February 1st, 2012 at noon. Registrations received after noon on Wednesday, February 1st will be charged an additional $10 late fee at the door.

For more information check out their website.

The following are our top 5.

1. Maintaining a blog can do a lot for your business. They bring traffic to your website, stir discussion and keep the public interested.  Blogging is as easy as creating a free account on Blogger.com or Wordpress.com. If you already have a Website, your Webmaster or marketing firm can create a blog as part of your site.  Once the blogging tool is installed, just log in and start writing.

1. Don’t hesitate to register with a business-listing site.  Websites like Bing, Yahoo, Yelp and Google can help your business with website traffic through search engine optimization (SEO), and help increase the amount of times you are seen online.

1. Paying attention to key words helps with SEO.  The more precise your wording, the higher the probability of increasing traffic to your website, and prospectively more clients.  You can also use the Google Keywords Tool which allows you to check for searches that describe your business and will notify you with successful and unsuccessful keywords that resulted from the search.

1. Watching your analytics also helps with your online presence.  You can register with Google Analytics and search your blog posts to see which are faring well on your site and what specific keywords were used to accomplish it. This helps see which keywords work best and what types of information are read frequently on your website.

1. Adding social media tools should be a priority in today’s society.  Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Linked in are just a few of the names we hear on a daily basis in public relations.  These social media sites are very popular and effective tools in creating website presence.

To read more helpful tips, visit Open Forum’s website.

The final decision of this bill may mean significant changes for Florida, it will give every divorce the opportunity to be reopened and renegotiated.

The Florida Civil Justice Subcommittee took the bill under advisement on December 7^th. While Florida has been making changes to its alimony laws since 2010, nothing has made an impact similar to what is being proposed now.

Angela Neave, a Boardroom Communications client and family lawyer at Barry I. Finkel, P.A, was featured in a front page article speaking out about the alimony bill.

“My gut reaction is this is a good start, but it won’t pass as it is because it is too drastic,” Neave said.

To read the entire article click here.

To read the full bill, click here.

Bal Harbour operating partner, Matthew Wintman Lanzenby, took this excellent opportunity to speak about the recent changes and expansions Bal Harbour Shops is making. Visitors from around the world will find several new tenants opening their stores at Bal Harbour, including Balenciaga, Breguet, CH Carolina Herrera, Panerai, La Perla and Stella McCartney. And more are on the way including Moncler, Canali and Alexander McQueen.

“Invariably it will be our best year of all time,” Lazenby said. “Some tenants are up as much as 100 percent.”

Since its opening in 1965, Bal Harbour’s sales per square foot have increased every year – only exceptions were in 2001 after the 9-11 attacks and during the recession in 2009.

Keeping Up With The Kardashians producer Ryan Seacrest tweeted the news Monday morning, and E! News issued a confirming statement some hours later.

But don’t worry, Kim K will be more than a-okay.

Forbe’s Magazine column, “Kim Kardashian’s Divorce Could Be Good for Business” makes it clear that the divorce won’t just leave the Kardashian brand untarnished, it will even enhance it. With her fame rooted in reality drama (after all she got her start with a sex tape!), you better believe that every media source is doing their best to keep up with this Kardashian.

People tune in for the drama, and Kim will undoubtedly make bank crying all over the sets of E! News, Ellen, and People Magazine.  This media traffic will ultimately drive more viewers back to the show, which will, again, drive more dough back into Kim’s back pocket. Pun intended.

So don’t feel bad for Kim, who ends her marriage with no kids, no mutual assets, and a prenuptial agreement. Forbes estimates that she made $12 million dollars just last year, while her ex-hubby Kris Humphries has made a total of $16 million over his seven-year basketball career.

Kim has no reason to instate a crisis communications plan.  All she needs to worry about is who keeps the $2 million dollar ring and the teacup dog.

That was the brilliance of Jobs. To paraphrase something he once said, “It isn’t up to consumers to know what they want. It’s up to us to tell them.”

Steven Jobs was one of those transformative inventors who comes along once every few generations. Perhaps it is a testament to how much he touched so many that – as President Barack Obama commented – so many learned of Jobs’ passing on a device he had invented.

He was also a public relations and marketing mastermind. His retail success came from creating powerful products backed by the buzz that made people feel they must have those devices. Apple’s iMac, iPod, iPad and iPhone wowed audiences when revealed in grand on-stage debuts – with Jobs as the emcee. Journalists were awed, and their articles reflected their amazement.

And we consumers bit – hard.

Apple didn’t need “traditional” consumer electronics marketing. The company consistently avoids major announcement hubs like the Consumer Electronics Show, notes PRdaily. He launched the hype – and sustained it.

Most (dare we say All-But-Apple) cannot afford to sidestep the major events. We bend over backwards to please our patrons, and play the retail merchandising game the way the industry has created it. Yet Jobs’ prowess in product development showed us that the brand dictates the trend – and not vice versa.

By developing one-of-a-kind products with unique messages to match, marrying art and technology in a way we’ve never seen before, Jobs dominated the technology industry. As the article explains, many described Apple products as “funky” and “snazzy,” showing their appreciation for the visual appearance of the tech.

Steve Jobs was quoted once as having said, “The customer is not right, I am.” Masterfully brilliant, unabashed in his view of the world, in every essence of the word, Steve Jobs – in his jeans and black, mock-turtleneck – didn’t just sell us things. He sold us dreams.

And if you were listening, he sold us a new roadmap to successful marketing.

Miami Herald reporter, columnist, blogger (and tweeter!) Cindy Goodman agrees, encouraging all journalists to use new media to enhance their brand as well as the quality and readership of their stories.

This is 2011. If you’re not on the new media train, you are most likely soon without a job.

Goodman was one of the first writers at The Miami Herald to start a blog (eight long years ago!), The Work/Life Balancing Act, and is an active voice on Twitter. She has additionally developed her own blog, Raising Teenagers in The Digital Age, uses a website for her own personal branding, and has Facebook pages devoted to her stories.

Goodman is an awesome example of using new media to stay alive in journalism, without sacrificing her journalistic integrity. Here are some tips and tools you can use to follow this new media maverick into the realms of multi-platform journalism:

BLOGGING

• Have fun with voice and personality in your blog. It’s a platform where there’s some wiggle room for editorializing. But don’t go overboard! You are still a journalist at heart.
• Make sure your blog has a consistent theme, voice, or message to establish yourself as an “expert” or “go-to” on your topic.
• Use your blog as a place to put ancillary, fun, less relevant information that didn’t necessarily fit into your stories.
• Keep up a conversation with your readers on your blog. Listen to their opinions and give them what they want!

TWITTER

• Be smart about your tweets to bring traffic back to your news story rather than give it all away in 140 characters.  Always try to tweet with links to a bigger story unless you are giving periodic updates from an event.
• Create a conversation with your followers. Don’t simply promote yourself, your brand, and your stories.
• Be careful about retweets: even if you’re not the one writing them, they still reflect on you and your journalistic voice and integrity. Make sure your retweets are reputable and that you are willing to be liable for them.
• Follow and retweet relevant sources to expose your readers. Twitter is all about vanity, so retweeting twitpics from your followers will encourage others to send in their photos, and ultimately follow you.

VIDEOREPORTING

• Be sure your videos complement the print/online story. They should not reiterate the print but augment it.
• Keep your videos short, from 90 seconds to 3 minutes.
• Sometimes you can use footage from an interview as online video; an interesting fact that didn’t necessarily fit into the story could make it in to the piece this way.
• Again, don’t shoot video for the sake of shooting video. There has to be a reason for people to play it.

With regards to all of this new media, take a deep breath before you post or upload. Think, do you really want to say this? Once you click submit, your words, pics, and video have free reign in the online vortex. You can never really take anything back! So next time you write a story, grab your flip-cam and your smartphone, because you’ll need them!

As a journalist, you may be entering uncharted waters, but with street smarts and adaptability, you should be a-okay.

Sheen seems to have taken a sabbatical from his previous antics, which lead to his firing from the hit comedy series, “Two and a Half Men.” With the season premiere of “Men” and his Comedy Central roast both airing on the Monday night after the Emmys, Sheen picked the perfect moment to debut his new, non-warlock self.

He also offered a lesson in why celebrities and other high-profile individuals – CEOs, executives and athletes – must protect their public personas, and apologize if they’ve transgressed.

Before being fired, Sheen was the highest paid actor on television at the time. Then, the meltdown. He held surreal interviews and television appearances. He spewed rhetorical nonsense that left viewers and media wondering about his mental state. He quickly became the hottest trending topic on Twitter for his outlandish posts and wild behavior.

Though he claimed to be “bi-winning,” this seemed like a huge lose-lose for Sheen, the show, and CBS.

So when Sheen took center stage at the Emmys to present the award for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series – his old category – no one knew exactly what to expect. He was apologetic and humble. He wished his old series well. He said (with apparent sincerity), “I know you will continue to make great television.”

So the question is: Who was the Sheen we had just seen? Was it an act, or has he truly changed? More importantly, how will he be remembered? Will we look back on Charlie Sheen and think of the eight years he spent dominating primetime? Or will we recall only “Violent Torpedoes of Truth,” “Rock Star from Mars” or any of the other 22 phrases he sought to trademark? Only time will tell.

On a more broad scope, celebrities and others in the limelight – community leaders, presidents of corporations, executive directors of a charity – must watch how they act in public. Don’t act in ways or say things that will tarnish the personal or brand image. Behave with decorum. Beware who’s watching. If caught, apologize – quickly.

Though Sheen dug himself into a PR nightmare this past year, he’s managing to slowly dig himself out. He’s even endorsing the “Two And A Half Men” premiere with his replacement Ashton Kutcher, tweeting, “Odd…But cool..! So far a lot of laughs!”

Though his jury is still out, hopefully Charlie Sheen can emerge #winning.

In mid-August Yahoo! Sports reported the corruption within the University of Miami football program- detailing a UM football booster’s showering of 72 players (and even administrators!) with lavish gifts including parties at night clubs, prostitutes, jewelry, clothing, and electronics. Nevin Shapiro, the culprit who is currently serving time for a $930 million dollar Ponzi scheme, wined and dined the players to get into the “in crowd,” and develop a posse of top players turning top recruits and then pro. Shapiro is serving a 20-year prison sentence for his actions- but the University of Miami as a college, community, and brand is facing serious repercussions. In fact, in their September 5^th game against Maryland, certain UM players who were deemed ineligible to play because of their part in the scandal left many inexperienced freshmen taking over their positions. The investigation will continue on.

The scandal floats like a black cloud over campus, and University President Donna E. Shalala has only recently instated a crisis communications plan. As WPLG-Miami reporter Michael Putney writes in his opinion piece in The Miami Herald on August 23^rd, “UM President Donna Shalala certainly didn’t look good the other day striding around the campus with a pasted-on grin as she welcomed reporters, none of whose questions she would answer…Not even ‘no comment.’” Even if Shalala didn’t have all of the facts, we at Boardroom Communications would have advised her to at least let reporters know she was on their side. She could have said, “I have no comment at this time other than to say that we are taking this very seriously and investigating it,” or something of this nature, from the very start. Putney puts it well, asking, “Why didn’t Shalala just call a news conference, say she wouldn’t be answering questions and read the limp, ineffectual statement her office issued…?” Maybe the media would’ve given her a break if she went humbly to the camera right away.

Then again, it probably wasn’t too fun greeting the parents and students of the Class of 2015 amidst the biggest scandal in University of Miami history.

Shalala did pen a letter to the community, and has made two videos reaching out to the university and community at large- directly addressing the incident from her own office. “When our values come into question, we only have one option,” she says in the video. “Do what is right and have confidence in tomorrow. The allegations leveled…are serious. And we are treating them with the urgency and priority they warrant.” Shalala also notes that the NCAA has instructed her and the university to not yet comment on specifics, and her personal frustration with being “unable to speak more freely and answer questions.”

Though initially faltering (and getting beaten for it), Shalala is starting to take the right steps by confidently looking straight into the camera and accepting responsibility for this scandal. When CEOS and corporate executives are faced with any sort of catastrophe, more often than not there is simply a press release, a general statement sent to publications and mass media, and nothing more. Shalala has employed a simple yet successful public relations strategy- appearing personal, humbled, and intimate with her audience and community. It’s obvious that she and the University of Miami administration are trying very hard to remain proactive in an attempt to redeem themselves and the reputation of their college. Thankfully, their current coach Al Golden remains untainted by the scandal- having arrived long after Shapiro’s departure. If he takes the reins and focuses on the future, maybe, just maybe, Miami can recover.