Connecting the Mind and Voice of Business Following military service and post-grad work in Journalism and Broadcasting, I worked as a weekly newspaper reporter and magazine editor before crossing over to public relations. Somewhere along the way it became clear that without some direction, PR programs wouldn"t get very far. Well-executed tactics are only effective long-term if they"re backed by a good strategy which is too often lacking. Since public relations is often about story telling (hopefully non-fiction) many PR pros find themselves pushing for and often helping create a differentiated brand story. Bridging the marketing and PR disciplines is what I find most professionally interesting and forms the basis for this book. I"d been publishing articles on these two subjects for a couple of decades and decided it was finally time to do something more with the accumulated information. Connecting the Mind and Voice of Business helps both marketing and PR pros work more effectively as a team, since I"ve certainly seen more than my share of disconnected marketing/PR campaigns. I hope some of the ideas you"ll find here will help your campaigns run as desired or perhaps even better than expected! Why Read This Book? There are plenty of books on Marketing and Public Relations, especially ones focusing on currently invogue social media tactics or online marketing. There are no other current books straddling the Marketing and PR disciplines and exclusively focusing on how pros in these two areas can work more cooperatively and effectively together. There"s a lot of information here for everyone who"s interested in growing their understanding of the Marketing/PR mix and strengthening their business team"s competitiveness. This Book Helps Your Business Because It: • Is based on hard-won, current experience from dozens of business assignments • Bridges a gap between Marketing and PR that other books do not address • Helps you understand the often opposing professional perspectives • Synthesizes the ideas of many Marketing pros • Demonstrates the values of Marketing/PR cooperation • Provides real-world examples that you can apply tp your Marketing or PR challenges • Comes at the Marketing and PR connection with actionable ideas • Its not just about social media strategy or tactics, but it includes them • Delivers information you won"t find in other books on Marketing or Public Relations