To Begin is to Win: ‘First Trainer’ Cornell McClellan’s Fitness Theory

“To Begin is to Win”

‘First Trainer’ Cornell McClellan’s Fitness Theory

From the pages of USA Weekend Cornell McClellan offers you the same fitness advice he gives to President and Mrs. Obama – “Get started and the most difficult part will be over.” Making the decision to get fit and stay fit is the first step to living a healthy lifestyle. McClellan suggests three tips to begin to win:

1.    Start slow.

2.    Have a clear, attainable goal in mind.

3.    Establish a weekly routine.

Now go for it. We’re cheering for you!

Highlighted Clip for Friday, April 29, 2011:

"'First trainer' Cornell McClellan's fitness advice"

I have dedicated my life to the discipline of fitness. Training the first family is a dream come true, and it is an opportunity that encourages me and motivates me every day. It has also led me to become passionate about health and fitness on a more public level.

Lean on Me

Lean on Me
In McKinney & Associates’ continued quest to promote health equity for all and as part of our Be Well campaign to encourage Black women’s overall health, we share today’s TheRoot.com blog post on a startling topic in Black women’s health: bulimia. This is a conversation stereotypically reserved for White women.
TheRoot.com article, “Blacks With Bulimia: A Secret in Plain Sight,” points to a 2009 study that African American women were 50 percent more likely to be bulimic than White women, in ranging income brackets. So why aren’t we talking about it more?
For some, unmanaged stress levels leading to overeating, past traumas and struggles with ethnic identity are contributing factors—not necessarily a desire to be thinner, as one would assume. Generations of Black women have learned to stand strong, smile and push through life while shouldering massive weights of injustices inflicted upon them. But being strong also means leaning on others when your inner strength needs recharging. We are advocating for better health on all levels, including a healthy self-image and seeking help to be emotionally and mentally well. Our women are far too valuable.

Read more here: http://www.theroot.com/views/black-women-bulimia-hiding-plain-sight

Remembering Phoebe Snow

Remembering Phoebe Snow

McKinney & Associates pauses to honor the life and legacy of singer-songwriter Phoebe Snow, who died on April 26 at age 60 from complications of a stroke that she suffered in January 2010. The New York Times calls Ms. Snow a “leading light of the sing-songwriter movement and whose swooping vocal acrobatics transcended musical genres.” Ms. Snow was a devoted mother to her daughter Valerie, who was born with severe brain damage. The NYT reports that Ms. Snow refused to institutionalize Valerie and decided to put her career on hold to care for her daughter, who died at 31 in 2007. Ms. Snow leaves the world with a treasured repertoire of songs, such as Poetry Man, that showcase her “soaring contralto.” Rest in Peace.

Highlighted Clip for Wednesday, April 27, 2011:
"Phoebe Snow, Bluesy Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 60"
By: Stephen Holden
Phoebe Snow, whose signature hit, “Poetry Man,” established her as a leading light of the singer-songwriter movement and whose swooping vocal acrobatics transcended musical genres, died on Tuesday in Edison, N.J. She was 60.

Egypt’s Future: Freedom, Now What?

Egypt’s Future: Freedom, Now What?

February’s uncontrolled, enduring protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to remove longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were fueled by a fire ignited by social media. The Egyptians’ unyielding pursuit for long-deserved democracy at whatever costs, resulted in several hundreds injured and some killed. But in the end, the people won. In today’s New York Times article, “Polls Find Egyptians Hopeful About the Future,” Egyptians seem “extraordinarily confident and enthusiastic” about their first free and fair election. What direction will this mean for them? Sometimes those who’ve never had freedom and suddenly come to posses it without instruction on how to best use it, worse actions will follow. It is hoped the country is collectively successful. Only time will tell how freedom’s price is invested.

Highlighted Clip for Tuesday, April 26, 2011:"Poll Finds Egyptians Full of Hope About the Future"

By David D. Kirkpatrick and Mona El-Naggar

Egyptians are looking forward with extraordinary confidence and enthusiasm to their first free and fair elections this fall after the defining revolution of the Arab spring, according to the first major poll since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. But they remain deeply divided over the role of Islam in their public life.



Bike Sharing to Good Health

Bike Sharing to Good Health

D.C.’s bike-share program is on a roll.  The Washington Post reports that more than 300,000 rides have been logged since the program launched September 20. This robust initiative has more than 1,000 bikes and more than 100 stations.  If you’re in the D.C. area, try out the program.  It’s a convenient, green-friendly and low-budget way to get around town, while exercising too!

Learn how the bike-share program works -- http://www.capitalbikeshare.com.

Can Education and Money Buy Your Health?

Can Education and Money Buy Your Health?

This may be odd to suggest that you can “buy your health,” but ask some folks in Florida. According to the following Florida Times Union article, the state’s southern most counties experience better health than those in northern Florida. They also have more college-educated adults with higher incomes, more assets and access to primary care providers. If that isn’t enough, South Floridians also exhibit healthier behaviors (drink less, smoke less) than most. If education and money is indeed the key to healthier, longer living, are those without doomed from the start?

Highlighted Clip for Friday, April 22, 2011:
"Our health is often in our own hands"

One key factor identified by a study titled "Map of Child Well-Being," is living in an isolated, high-poverty neighborhood.
This study was produced by the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University for the Jacksonville Children's Commission.

Barcelona Principles: A New Yard Stick for Measuring PR or Same O’, Same O’? You be the judge.

Barcelona Principles

A New Yard Stick for Measuring PR

or Same O’, Same O’?

You be the judge.

Clients want and deserve to know if the public relations strategy they paid for is effective. Did your campaign drive desired change, raise critical awareness, or reframe the conversation on a particular issue? Measuring public relations was the focus of the 2010 international PR summit in Barcelona, Spain. This gathering of PR practioners from around the world produced a new declaration of standards and practices to guide the evaluation PR. Check out the “Barcelona Principles” and let us know if you see any innovations in how to measure PR:

1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental aspects of any PR program.
2. Media measurement requires quantity and quality – cuttings in themselves are not enough.
3. Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity.
4. Social media can and should be measured.
5. Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results.
6. Business results can and should be measured where possible.
7. Transparency and Replicability are paramount to sound measurement.

Love to get your feedback. Please leave your comments below!

One Year Later: Hopes Washing Away

One Year Later: Hopes Washing Away

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the catastrophic BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill that killed 11 workers, devastated animal life and heavily altered the lives of Gulf Coast residents. The despair remains. Many Gulf residents' fishing, food or tourist industry businesses were lost to one of the largest oil spills on record.  Seasonal incomes that typically forecast one year's wages are gone—claims still await processing by BP. Hopes of recovering what used to be, are washing away. Groups most impacted according to the NAACP Climate Justice Department are people of color on numerous fronts, including: health, housing and jobs.  Given that people of color are already disproportionately affected by challenges in these three areas, how do we realistically restore hope?

Highlighted Clip for Wednesday, April 20, 2011:
"Gulf Coast Is Still Hurting"

By: Cynthia Gordy On the one-year anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, President Obama released a statement marking the occasion. Noting his administration's efforts to hold BP accountable for the catastrophic damage wreaked on the Gulf Coast, he admitted that the job is far from done.

Place Matters When it Comes to Life and Death

Place Matters When it Comes to Life and Death

The recent shooting death of 16-year-old Ra-Heem Jackson near his home in the Congress Heights community of Washington, DC, is a health equity issue. Where Ra-Heem lived proved as significant to his health as his genetic code.  The high school honors student and athlete had to navigate crime-ridden streets to get home from school in the shadowy hours of dusk. He knew danger lurked in the troubled streets of his zip code. He had been robbed once coming home from school after basketball practice. He bought a gun to protect himself from another robbery. It didn’t work out. 

The groundbreaking PBS documentary series Unnatural Causes, Is Inequality Making Us Sick? makes the point that your address is a good indicator of your health. “Housing policy is health policy. Neighborhood improvement policies are health policies. Everything that we can do to improve the quality of life for individuals in our society has an impact on their health and is a health policy,” says Harvard’s David Williams, PhD, one of America’s leading experts on health equity and disparities.

As the series urges, to improve the health and health care of all Americans, we must go beyond linking health to medical care, lifestyles and genes to explore evidence of other more powerful determinants: the social conditions in which we are born, live and work.

America, let’s move fast to create cross-cutting public policy that nurtures the health and wellbeing of all. No more tragic deaths, please!

For more on "Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick" visit:

http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/about_the_series.php

Highlighted Clip for Tuesday, April 19, 2011:
"Emancipation is hard to celebrate when kids are still slave to city’s violence"
By Courtland Milloy
And it came to pass that many African American youths could not celebrate D.C. Emancipation Day on Friday. For a plague of violence had been visited upon them. And the soil once toiled by slaves was soaked with the blood of free-born blacks.

Sack Lunches Get the 'Sack' in Chicago School

Sack Lunches Get the 'Sack' in Chicago School

First Lady Obama's "Let's Move" campaign has inspired communities, families and schools to lead healthier lifestyles by exercising and choosing better foods. However, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side went a step further by banning sack lunches. Parents were packing their kids' lunches with chips, cookies and sodas. Under the new policy, students can either eat the $2.25-per day cafeteria meal or go hungry.

Is this extreme? Though the $45 monthly school meals contain colorful fruits, vegetables and healthy entrees, parents are angry. In light of today's economic environment, this may break family budgets already strained. Generally, it costs more to eat healthier but buying groceries you can stretch out as opposed to purchasing daily meals is not cost-effective. Sack lunches by themselves are not the problem. Educating families on what items go into the sack lunch is an approach for harvesting more seeds of success and personal responsibility.

Highlighted Clip for Monday, April 18, 2011:

"Chicago school bans packed lunches"

By: Jenn Savedge

A small school in Chicago is making big news on the lunch line these days. Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side no longer allows students to bring food from home to eat for lunch. So it's either eat the cafeteria food or go hungry. As you might expect, the policy has parents all around the nation in an uproar.

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns: Tip #7: Assure your campaign is successful

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns

After all the hard work of designing a PR campaign and the communications strategy to support it, don’t blow it by making avoidable mistakes!

Tip Number Seven:  Last, But Not Least . . .

Assure that your PR campaign is successful.  Avoid the common pitfalls and check out these tips. . .

·         Design a multi-layered, multi-channeled campaign

·         Produce campaign messages that compliment your image and brand

·         Plan ahead—prep your team, identify contingencies, check-off all  pre-launch tasks before going live

·         Make sure your campaign is relevant and newsworthy; pitch before launch

·         Provide customer-specific solutions in your campaign

·         Keep campaign going—offer strategies that both build on one another and can be phased in over time

·         Do your homework—make sure you and client are on same page; listen, research and satisfy!

We hope you enjoyed this week's series on PR Campaigns, be sure to check back for more valuable Tips of the Trade!

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns: Tip #6: Is Your Campaign Sustainable?

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns

After all the hard work of designing a PR campaign and the communications strategy to support it, don’t blow it by making avoidable mistakes!

Tip Number Six:  Is Your Campaign Sustainable?

Here today . . . gone tomorrow?  Will your campaign and its impact fizzle after only a few weeks or months? To sustain your momentum after the campaign’s initial buzz, make sure your message(s) target multiple audiences.  And definitely, create content with applicability beyond the day it is written.

Number Seven? This tip sums up the common PR campaign pitfalls and how to avoid them.

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns: Tip #5

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns

After all the hard work of designing a PR campaign and the communications strategy to support it, don’t blow it by making avoidable mistakes!

Tip Number Five:  Is Your Campaign Customer Focused?

Can your campaign make a difference?  Can it improve service delivery?  Increase market share? Help to right a wrong?  Eliminate disparities?
Make sure that you solve your customer(s) problem(s) with your PR campaign.  Be authentic, audiences are smart and can see right through disingenuous solutions.  Avoid the “heartstrings” but, at the same time, your PR campaign should demonstrate that you care.

Can’t wait for Tip Number Six? Click McKPR’s Comm in the Storm tomorrow!

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns: Tips 3 & 4

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns

After all the hard work of designing a PR campaign and the communications strategy to support it, don’t blow it by making avoidable mistakes!

Tip Number Three:  Are You Ready to Launch?      

Have you reviewed your plan?  Are you prepared with contingencies?  Are all members of the team prepped?  Have you checked off all pre-launch tasks?Of course, you know to start with a plan, and it’s a good one if all members of the team are on board and on point.  And definitely make sure all spokespersons are prepared for both traditional and social media inquiries.                                                                     

Tip Number Four:  Will Anyone Care?            

Put on your journalist hat and think like the media.  Make sure the outlets and targets for your campaign are the right ones. Read, listen and/or watch the media outlets you are pitching for your PR campaign.  A little intel goes a long way!

Check back tomorrow for Tip Number 5!

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns

 

Common Pitfalls of PR Campaigns

After all the hard work of designing a PR campaign and the communications strategy to support it, don’t blow it by making avoidable mistakes!

Tip Number One:  Make sure your campaign is integrated. 

More than a news release, a PR campaign is both multi-channeled and multi-layered. Use both online and offline strategies including developing a media kit, writing a blog post, producing a video and/or podcast, and organizing an event for key stakeholders.  And make sure all components of the campaign are integrated with each activity building on another . . . . An integrated strategy assures success.

Tip Number Two:  Campaign and brand (image) must be complimentary. 

Remember, “if it doesn’t fit,” then don’t’ commit. There is nothing worse than not understanding how a PR campaign fits into your overall marketing strategy. Will your target audience identify your company with the new campaign? What is your company’s identity and how will this campaign reinforce an image that has been branded for your audience(s) and stakeholders? Will this campaign heighten your company’s visibility?

Tips three and four coming soon!

A PowerPoint that Pops: 5 Techniques to Wow Your Audience, Part 5

A PowerPoint that Pops: 5 Techniques to Wow Your Audience, Part 5

Tip #5: Practice. Practice. Practice!

In this final installment of the PowerPoint that Pops series, I want to leave you with a very simple tip that will ensure a winning presentation: Practice makes perfect! A well-prepared and enthusiastic talk will help you convince your audience and maintain their attention, but you cannot be enthusiastic or convincing if you are unsure of what you are talking about. The best thing to do before any presentation is to practice it front of someone. Ask a friend or a colleague to watch and critique your presentation. This not only allows you to receive feedback from someone you trust, but it also gets you comfortable with navigating through your presentation while expounding on key points. Here are some key points that define a good talk.

• Know your slides inside out.
• Speak freely.
• Speak with confidence – loud and clear.
• Don’t speak too fast.
• Maintain eye contact with the audience.

Now that you have completed this series, you have what it takes to wow your audience! Good Luck!

For more advice on PowerPoint ‘don’ts,’ read this article.