Each year, the Boys & Girls Club of Broward County celebrates the accomplishments of outstanding women who have influenced the county’s community, businesses and philanthropic fields. The event also features a dinner, fashion show, and live and silent auctions.

This year’s honorees include Davie Mayor, Judy Paul, and Katina Taylor of the Jason Taylor Foundation.

Event chairs are Gale Butler of AutoNation, Kim Sweers of Fastboats Marine Group and Ann D’Auria of Bank Atlantic.

William J. Flannery, J.D. with The WJF Institute,  will cover topics ranging from face-to-face business development to the implementation of worldwide global client-focused teams. This presentation is unique and focuses on best practices  from corporate sales, marketing and global account management to show what law firms can learn from their clients.

Bill’s presentation is the collective knowledge of 40 years in business development, sales, marketing and global account management. This presentation is designed for firms of all sizes, geographic locations and  practice areas. Bill has worked with 136 of the AMLAW 200 and law practices ranging from boutiques to sole practitioners to the very largest.

For more information on the event or to RSVP, please contact Jennifer Clarin at jclarin@boardroompr.com or (954) 370-8999, via SurveyMonkey, http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BMD3826. The event is $20 for LMA members and $40 for non-members.

We look forward to seeing you on May 22!

Are you using social media to do business?

Do you blog, tweet, “like” a product or service?  Or, do you find it all a big waste of time?

Faced with so many choices, many businesses simply don’t do any of the above. Recently, a client stated that while he had a LinkedIn account, he really didn’t know what good it would do him for his business.

For professionals, LinkedIn is a great way to connect, find people in the same profession, make referrals, get referrals and learn more about each other.

According to the latest statistics, there are more than 3.2 million CEOs and VPs, 3.8 million financial service professionals and 3.4 million technology leaders on LinkedIn.

Where else are you going to find such a vast universe of potential business partners and clients?

If you’re looking to become recognized as a go-to person in your profession, consider this: 92 percent of the media is on LinkedIn, and when looking for a source on a particular subject, many turn to the social media outlet.

If you want to stand out from the rest consider the following:

Make sure your profile is up to date with your latest jobs and responsibilities. Make sure it’s complete and interesting. If you read it as someone who didn’t know you, would you understand what you did for a living and how it could help someone else?

But just having a profile isn’t enough, you must engage in conversations within discussion groups and post regularly on subjects about which you are an expert. Putting up quotes from Albert Einstein or Gloria Steinem isn’t providing value. Give your readers something they can learn from.

Often clients talk about how they don’t want to “LinkIn” with every person who makes the request, and rightly so. Before clicking the “accept” button determine what you will learn or gain from connecting with that person. Google them to make sure they are who they say they are. If they say they work at a particular company, make sure they do. Anyone can claim to be anything.

Should you optimize your LinkedIn page by cramming it with keywords so that you come up higher in online searches? Not necessarily. Showing up higher up in Google searches may not get you the results you are seeking. You don’t need to be found by everyone, just the right people.

For the busy professional, LinkedIn can serve as a dynamic calling card and provide numerous opportunities to make valuable connections to grow your business.

PR Daily recently put together a list of nine non-obvious skills that all PR practitioners should have. Here is our list of top three.

Teamwork experience
PR pros should know how to work with their team members in order to get the best results for their clients. Everyone is different, but the ability to work well in a group is a huge part of the job. You may not agree or like everyone you come into contact with, but it’s important to be able to work well together.

Multitasking
To be successful in PR, you need to be able to handle more than one task, or client, at a time. Different clients will require different things from you, and a PR pro should be able to juggle several things at a time. Even for a single account, you may be working on multiple projects or opportunities at a time.

Creativity
When you think you’ve hit a lull, it’s important to find new ways to promote your clients. That’s where some creativity kicks in. If you can find an interesting, new way to look at your client and client news, there’s a chance that a journalist or a producer might see your viewpoint. However, don’t go overboard with creativity, try to be reasonable and use your common sense.

Get your spandex shorts and biking shoes ready because the 26^th Annual Zimmerman MS Bike Ride, Presented by Mack Cycle and Fitness, is ready to roll. More than 2,500 cyclists are expected to participate in the bike race at 7 a.m. this Saturday, including Phil Keoghan, the host of The Amazing Race. There are many teams in the race, including Zimmerman’s Zmotion team, Mack Cycle and Fitness and Bacardi’s team of more than 220 cyclists, many of which are supporting family members with MS.  Yolanda Salgado, a member of the Mack Cycle and Fitness team who suffers from MS, will be riding for “hope” on a recumbent bike donated by the team.

The ride begins in Homestead-Miami Speedway with a lap around the track, then cyclists will continue the 150-mile journey, stopping overnight at John Pennekamp Park in Key Largo.

Once all the riders have arrived at the park, there will be a celebration with food and entertainment.

In the morning, the riders will return to the speedway and be cheered until the finish line.

Other riders are also invited to participate in a Kids and Family Ride on April 21^st at 8 a.m.  There is a $15 fundraising minimum for kids 12 and under plus free registration, $50 minimum for teens ages 13 – 17, $150 minimum for adults 18 and over, with a $20 registration fee.

In addition to the generous support from the title and presenting sponsors, Zimmerman Advertising and Mack Cycle and Fitness, the following organizations have committed as major supporters of the MS Bike Ride:  DHL, Maroone, FedEx, Bacardi Hatuey, Amex, Subway and UPS.

To register or volunteer for the Zimmerman MS Bike Ride Presented by Mack Cycle and Fitness visit www.msbikeflorida.org, email ms150bike@fls.nmss.org or call 1-800-FIGHT-MS (344-4867).

Below are three tips we found helpful to defend your business’s reputation  from the American Express Open Forum. For the full article and all six tips click here.

Join the conversation
Get your side of the story out by responding to a negative review publicly, keeping in mind, maintain a professional tone.

Highlight the positive
Review sites, like Yelp, run submissions through an algorithm designed to determine their legitimacy. Suspect reviews—negative or positive—are hidden in the “Filter” section at the bottom of each page. Unfortunately, it is possible for legitimate, positive reviews to not make it past the filter. In your public response make sure to draw attention to all positive feedback that is currently hidden.

Develop a strategy for responding to threats
It is not too far-fetched to come up against a customer threatening to post damaging reviews if free work isn’t provided to them. It is important to plan for this. Sometimes it may make more sense to acquiesce to the customer’s demands than take legal action.

For business owners and executives, it offers a valuable lesson in crisis communications management.

After seven weeks, George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who shot Martin, 17, was charged with second degree murder. Yet, from a public relations standpoint, the reputation of the Sanford Police Department suffered. Many believe the department could have done more to avoid the public scrutiny it faces today.

From the beginning, Chief Bill Lee appeared dismissive when asked about the investigation. He could have released statements that focus on what his department was doing to help with the investigation; instead he focused on how there was nothing to rebut Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense.

Then, on March 22, Lee “temporarily” stepped down from his post.

His lack of communication with the media and the public may have potentially lost him his job.

Less than a week later, the department released a statement warning members of the media to “refrain from approaching, phoning or emailing city employees when they are in their roles as private citizens…Law enforcement officials will not hesitate to make an arrest for stalking.” Crisis communication professionals balked. Threatening the media with arrest, except in situations where their presence could cause harm, generally is ill-advised. Sure enough, a day later, Sanford Police issued another statement rescinding the previous statement.

But the Sanford Police Department did manage to do one thing right. When a group of local students demonstrated outside the department, the police made no arrests. Instead of adding fuel to the fire, the police allowed the public to exercise its First Amendment rights. In the end, the students got their message across, and the police department earned some credibility for treating them respectfully.

Much remains to be done before the Trayvon Martin case comes to the close. From this point forward, though, it’s advisable for the Sanford Police Department to be responsive and transparent, to stick to the facts, and never to dismiss the chance to communicate openly and honestly with the media and the public. Such an approach certainly would have saved face for the department, and could well have saved one chief’s job.



The Cuban community has made their voices loud and clear on this one, demanding that Guillen be fired from his post. The comment is not only insanely offensive, but it comes after the inauguration of the brand new Marlins stadium built in Little Havana this year. Who’s tax money do you think helped get that job done?

Today, Guillen inaugurated a crisis communications plan in attempt to make up for his hurtful words. “This is the biggest mistake of my life,” he said to a press conference. “When you make a mistake this big…I will learn from it.”

But honestly, Guillen is going to do have to do a tad bit better than that to win back the respect of the Latino and South Florida community at large. Suspended for five games, Guillen will have some time away from the ballpark to hopefully enact a smarter plan of action.

Guillen needs to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk. He should take pause to truly educate himself on why it was that his words were so painful and ignorant, and share his reflections with the public. In his return on April 17th — ironically, the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs Invasion — hopefully Guillen will address us with wise words on the day. He should look at this coincidental date as a public relations miracle, and correctly preparing for it may be the best way  to recover from the scandal.