Working At Home Without Distractions

     Okay, so this isn’t really a post about how to improve your PR or solve some knotty communications problem.  It starts with shameless self-promotion — but then, aren’t all blogs that in one way or another?  Anyway, let’s get the self-promotion part out of the way first, then I’ll tell you how it got me to thinking about improving the business bottom line and how I hope my 2 cents worth will help you.

     I answered a query for the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur website (go ahead and laugh) which wanted tips for “How to Work At Home Without Distractions.”  Yes, mine got picked up (scroll down to #82 in the list of 155 at http://budurl.com/nodistractions).

     As I perused the others on the way to verifying where mine was in the line-up I saw a pattern.  The specific mechanics varied a little, but the refrain was the same: treat your home office and home work life like a real job.  Common sense, you say, but in this economy where between actual paying gigs the pressure is on to network constantly, it is easy to slip down that all-too-slippery slope of twittering, Linking-in, blogging (like right now), and next thing you know it is no longer networking to stay visible for the next paying gig, it is busy work to justify staying at your desk under the false pretense that if you are at your desk you must be productive.  Not true!

     Oddly enough, the genesis for this blog and its title came on a power walk in the neighborhood after launching my children aboard the school bus one morning.  Another query idea came a few minutes ago because I answered the phone to a recorded message from a retailer and thought about some changes in the business landscape that would make a good article.  My most recent paying gig came when I was rewarding myself with a few minutes in a book store and happened upon a news scoop because I chatted up the management.

     My point is, some “distractions” of working at home are a good thing.  They get you out of a rut and lead you to more creative thinking away from your desk, which gives you a real reason to go back to your desk.

     No doubt about it, I do turn off phones when I am writing, have dedicated time (predawn) and space that I carefully safeguard.  I’m just saying, depending on who you are and how your thought process works, some decidedly non-professional time spent switching laundry or taking an exercise break during a work day at home may actually make more sense/cent$ in the long run sometimes.

     Here’s to happy and productive distractions or avoidance of same, where ever you work.

PR 101: What is public relations?

This morning I gave a brief presentation to a group of women small business owners, titled “PR 101: What is Public Relations?”  Although I chose the topic because I knew it was needed and desired by this group, I was nevertheless struck by how surprised many were that public relations is a complex management function, not just the one or two tools (i.e., news releases) that often spring to mind.

Rather than finding this discouraging, I see this as an opportunity to educate new and upcoming small business owners on the merits of research, evaluation, planning, action, communication and evaluation (the old REPACE model of yore to those who have formal training in PR).  Many expressed relief that there is such a framework, even as they realized — and became a bit overwhelmed at the thought of — how much more vast PR is than mailing a news release to the local newspaper. 

Budgets are slim and competition fierce for those clients who can and are willing to pay for PR services these days.  I am heartened, however, that today an opportunity, however humble, presented itself to grow the number of business owners who now have a better understanding of an appreciation for the value of PR as a core management function.