For those of you who do work with us, you know that Patti Knight is the glue that keeps it all together.

For those of you who want to do work with us, or want access to me, make friends with Patti Knight.

Now.

I remember when I got Patti’s resume three years ago. She spent most of her career at Edelman and was the president’s executive assistant. And I thought, “If she’s good enough for Pam Talbot, she’s certainly good enough for me.” Continue Reading »

Up at 5 a.m. Check email, Facebook, Twitter, G+, LinkedIn groups and discussions, text messages, blog traffic, web traffic, and PostRank analytics all while brushing your teeth and feeding kids or pets.

Make time to exercise, do some writing, get ready for work.

Work a full day.

Rush home to make and have dinner with your family.

Check email, Facebook, Twitter, G+, LinkedIn groups and discussions, text messages, blog traffic, web traffic, and PostRank analytics.

Sleep by 11 p.m. Do it again the next day.

How familiar does this sound? Maybe there is a tweak or two in there, but if you’re an entrepreneur, your days are long, your weeks are long, your months are long, and your years fly by while you’re left wondering where your time went. Continue Reading »

Have you ever fit two weeks into one? That’s how this week has felt, but I have to say that, without Patti Knight, I’d still be digging through emails and would have accomplished nothing. But, because she is a saint and filed emails, answered ones that she could, and left me the ones that could only be answered by me, I got through them all of them on Monday. Which also means I was able to stay caught up on my Google Reader (I actually use the Reeder app on my iPad) and found some really, really good stuff for you! It’s going to be hard to narrow it all down to just five.

But I’m going to try so following are the top five stories for week ending Oct. 29, 2010. Continue Reading »

I’ve written, and rewritten, this blog post in my head the past two months and, now that the time is here to announce our news, I don’t have the perfect post yet.

So…I’m just going to write it.

Arment Dietrich is no longer a PR firm.

Yes, I’m serious. We are no longer a PR firm.

So what happened? Well, a few things (including the economy), but the two big game changers were:

1. We had nearly half of our clients tell me at some point that they missed working with me on very strategic projects; and

2. I wasn’t enjoying my job anymore – the reason I started my own business was to do PR the way I thought it should be done and, instead, I was sucked into running a business and no longer doing what I loved.

I did some soul searching. What is it I love to do? Why do I get out of bed and come to work every day? The answers surprised me.

I love to write. I love to speak. And I love working with clients. Other than blog writing, I wasn’t doing any of those things.

So, in September, I began to test the waters. The speaking and working with clients starting picking up and, almost overnight, I was doing what I loved to do. And, through my speaking came writing inspiration and the ability to work with clients every day. But I didn’t have a business that supported this model.

It won’t come as a surprise to you, if you read this blog, that I’ve been solely focused on social media for the past 18 months. And it’s turning into something we can build a business around

As of today, Arment Dietrich allows me to write (with the goal of being published in the next 12 months), but it also allows us to build a business around speaking and coaching. Our focus is a bit different than most – we understand how online communication affects growth to the bottom line and we’ve created a process around how to make that happen for our clients. We now work with executives to incorporate online communication (right now it’s social media, but that will evolve) into their companies in order to: Build their communities, generate leads, cultivate those leads, and then convert those leads into sales/customers/clients for business growth.

Will we do some traditional PR as part of a bigger, overall plan? Sure. But if the majority of your program isn’t focused on digital communication, we’re not the right company for you. In most cases, we won’t do your online communication for you; we’ll help you incorporate it into your business so you eventually fly on your own.

Courtney Lawrence and Molli Megasko are here to help build this new business model. And, of course, we couldn’t do any of it without Patti Knight. Everyone else, though, has moved on to PR positions where they don’t have to change careers.

We are communicators, innovators, and thought leaders. Now we can officially claim our expertise goes beyond PR. But how do we encompass that into one quick answer when someone asks “What do you do?”

How would you answer that question if you were us?

   Until recently I wasn’t familiar with Kiehl’s products.  Because of Brad Pitt, I now know that Kiehl’s is a beauty and cosmetics maker known for its old-school, natural formulas and minimalistic packaging.  Read full article:  http://thecycle.prweekblogs.com/2008/08/19/kiehls-taps-pitt-for-cause-marketing-effort/. Continue Reading »