Before conducting business in foreign countries, it is important to familiarize yourself with the customs and cultures of that country. What is acceptable here in the United States may be taboo in that country. By preparing ahead of time, you will lessen the risk of embarrassing yourself and sticking your foot in your mouth and potentially damaging your business relationship. President Obama is currently making his first official visit to Australia and kudos to him for taking the time to familiarize himself with some common jargon. During a speech at the Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, President Obama worked in Australian jargon terms like “earbashing” and “sticky wickets” while talking about the relationship between the United States and Australia. Having used these jargon terms correctly, President Obama has shown that he prides himself in preparing himself for business in other countries and hopefully this will improve our foreign policy and help get us out of our sticky economic situation

It is said that any publicity is good publicity. Apparently PR reps in NYC are trying to get publicity for their events in creative ways. They have asked bloggers to post about their events after the fact and not having invited them to attend. Christopher Kouliuris, a NYC social scene blogger for scallywagandvagabond.com, is appalled by this and has written an entertaining post on his blog about it. Check out the post and let me know your thoughts.

For those of you who are regular readers of my (mis)adventures of carousing the NYC society set- you’ve probably gone away with the impression that I live some sort of glorious glamorous life. How wrong you all are, except for the occasional cocktail, inspiring guest, cause or lingering glance of some femme fatale who really should know better, canvassing the NYC social landscape as a reporter is a thankless task.

Thankless because of the demands imposed on keeping a tight journal (which means whilst you all sleep coco pops away I’m up inventing clever dribble and uploading images after images of people who always seem to be too happy). But today I can tell you my task of being a society reporter has just become 17 notches more miserable. Why you wonder? Because I want every publicist who has ever had the good idea to find me to scratch me off their go to media list take a few steps back. Not because I don’t like publicists (I like quite a few of you if you must know) but because of the calculating nature of the way some of you behave and the conniving games so many of you relish in (but why?).

So let’s get to the meat of the matter. In the space of 7 days I, this scoundrel, received no fewer than 117 10 society event invitations as my capacity as a society reporter (whatever society means anymore and whatever it is us society reporters are suppose to do anymore…blah!). Out of those I probably I only bothered attending 3. Okay, so far we’re all happy. Now here’s where the jig comes in, during those same 7 days I also received 400 9 event post press releases with propaganda jargon and accompanying pictures, get ready to catch this- to events that I or the journal wasn’t invited to but passively expected to publish regardless.

So let’s get this straight, I get invites to events and if I feel as publisher we should cover them we do. But now not only am I getting the usual invites, I am now getting more ‘non invites’ to events that I wasn’t invited to attend solely for the intent that some publicist can use me as a marketing conduit for their paying client.

This of course generally comes with a carefully worded tip sheet (cause we all need to metaphorically know the client has a penis 78 times bigger more cache than you and I could ever hope to have ) with select accompanying pictures of marvelously happy people. How they always manage to be happy beats me, but then again who can really understand the aspirations of most media whores? (milk the camera boy for as much public exposure then go on to hopefully milk an appearance deal or at least self justified social standing).

Now if you were in my position how would you respond? Would you acquiesce and just post said propaganda pieces (and I know quite a few of you bloggers that do, but I wont mention names this time, cause last time I embarrassed you all gave me dirty looks for weeks to come, but you copy and paste bloggers we all know who you are…) or would you do what I do – which is stand up for yourself?

Now the polite thing would be to ignore the emails and just pay them offending publicists no mind. But I am afraid as some of you have to come to find out, I don’t tolerate bad form too well (especially after one publicist had me unceremoniously thrown out of one event earlier this year and another threatened to sue me for exercising my journalistic rights). And if I must I will gather you up and expose your treacherous ways. Which reminds me about the phone call I received Sunday night (8.09pm) from a certain infamous paparazzo who I severed ties with in early October who threatened to beat the crap out of me (according to sources this is his usual way of intimidation, never mind the taped messages) if I went to press with a story documenting his shady crashing ways that most publicists can tell you about and have emailed me about (paparazzo the story will be up soon- promise).

Which brings me to the above arbitrary sample from one publicist. Let’s all read it together:

photo taken from Scallywag & Vagabond

So please ladies and gentlemen of the public relations world- start treating us society reporters with respect, even allocate a portion of your budget for us to cover your event product placement (really that’s what it amounts to) and we too will give you a perfect pr write up that your client can be proud of. Or on the other hand approach us with respect and ask us if this is something we would consider writing about, assuming it reflects one’s journal editorial gambit.

source:Scallywag & Vagabond

Image from Hollywood Reporter

Justin Timberlake is a man of his word and attended Saturday’s Marine Corps ball with Cpl. Kelsey De Santis. Back in July, Cpl. De Santis posted a YouTube video asking him to escort her to the the ball and he accepted. Saturday he proved he was a man of his word by escorting her to the ball.

Reports are that he had a good time, was a normal person and posed for pictures with other guests. While many might consider this a publicity stunt, Timberlake was moved by the event and posted a letter about his evening on his website.

Timberlake said, “To all of you that serve every day for us... Ensuring our freedom, I say: My deepest gratitude to you. I've met so many of my heroes... From Michael Jordan to Michael Jackson. And, nothing makes me feel more honor and pride than when I get to meet one of you. Last night changed my life and I will never forget it.”

We can all learn from this and should always give our military men and women the respect and honor they deserve. Thank you for all that you do.

Just in case you want to link to the full letter:

Justin Timberlake's night at the Marine Corps ball

When most people think about etiquette, they think about table manners and which fork to use while eating their salad. Etiquette is also a popular topic in the business world. Hiring managers judge their prospective employees to see their knowledge of etiquette and managers have their employees take etiquette training to help improve their skills in hopes it will increase sales.

Most people do not realize that etiquette is also a part of sports. Webster’s defines sportsmanship as conduct becoming to one participating in a sport. In other words, sportsmanship is a form of etiquette and as such your conduct should be reflective of you and the organization you are representing.

Recently, two football coaches almost were involved in an altercation after their game. At the end of a football game, it is customary for the opposing coaches to shake hands. Sometimes they share a few words, wish the other luck and then go on with their business, but, at a minimum, they shake hands. At the end of this game, the losing coach took offense at the winning coach’s exuberance during their handshake. The winning coach shook the loser’s hand and gave him a slap on the back. Already upset with losing the game, the losing coach mentally lost it after this handshake and began chasing the winning coach down. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and kept the two separated.

Perception played a major role in this etiquette breakdown. Your actions are perceived by others and it is important for your intent to be perceived correctly. I’m sure the winning coach had no intent to embarrass the other coach, however, this is how it was perceived by the losing coach and it almost resulted in a fight. Everybody loves to win, but it is important to win with dignity and conduct yourself in a manner that is respectful to the loser and is positively representative of your organization.

With today being Veterans Day, we need to take a moment to pay our respects to all the current and former members of the armed forces. These heroes have taken time away from their families to protect the freedoms we enjoy each and every day.

Veterans Day began as Armistice Day and was a day to honor those who fought in World War I. It was called Armistice Day because it recognized the anniversary of the armistice that brought an end to World War I on November 11, 1918. It was later changed to Veterans Day in 1954 because the armed forces had been through World War II and the conflict in Korea and the government wanted to make sure to honor these heroes as well.

So, spend a minute and be thankful that these heroes have sacrificed so much for all of us.

God Bless and God Bless America.