A gloomy Monday -- and a soul-crushing task defeated

It was a Monday morning. Spring was more than a month away, and a major rainstorm was predicted later in the week.

The PR team had just received good news about our office reorganization -- we'd been given the go-ahead to meet with leaders of the new areas we will be working with.

For months we'd worked with consultants, refining our focus and reorganizing the department. In our new beats, each editor will work with a school and clinical/outreach entities.

The week was going to be busy,with hours of meetings, a signature event to cover that would last late into the night and working with more than 30 administrators on their web bios. I was also assisting with coverage and PR planing for an organization-wide, week-long event.

This post never would've happened if I'd needed to schedule one meeting. I would've created a brief email or called to explain the purpose for the meeting, proposed a time, waited for the response, rescheduling if needed.

The prospect of setting up a series of meetings with several administrators whose calendars are filled weeks in advance, however, was soul crushing. Should crushing and energy draining.

What would happen if I dropped by each office? I signed out on the office white board. I didn't call ahead--if it didn't go well after the first office I'd try email.

I walked across campus to the Center for Dental research. The administrative assistant was at her desk and I explained why I needed to meet with her boss. 

She opened his calendar and immediately gave me the first available appointment.

The Cancer Center administrative office is in the same building and when I stopped by the receptionist wasn't at her desk. She'd been called down the hall and as soon as she saw me, she greeted me. After a few minutes connecting and sharing my excitement about learning more about the Cancer Center, she set up the first available appointment. I left her office having learned the administrators' meeting style.

I'd begun to bond with very important people I'll be working with closely, professionals who understand the intricacies of their department.

As I erased my destination from the white board, I realized the significance of what had just happened.

The meetings were set up in less than an hour and calendar invites were in my email in-box before I returned to the office. If I'd taken the tech route/emailing or called, I'd still be requesting the meetings or waiting for responses or call-backs and the process would've continued into the week.

I later realized I'd experienced something I'd read about in Jonah Berger's book, Contagious. I'd picked up a copy of Contagious at an airport last year. It was written after people asked Berger for content from a course he taught at Wharton about why content goes viral. In the book, he talks about how people like to be "in the know." I'd taken time with them on a gloomy Monday morning sharing my excitement and getting to know them. Until they could meet with the dean or head of their department, they were in the know, anticipating sharing helpful news.

It had been an enlightening Monday morning, with a soul-crushing task defeated.

Public relations is like a TV series; Marketing is like a feature film

After completing the master of professional writing program at University of Southern California, I continued taking classes at USC. The university allows alumni to continue to take courses that interest them with permission of the department.

I looked for classes that would give me the confidence to be able to complete a screenplay on my own, without workshopping it in the safety of screenwriting courses. I was looking forward to taking some of the classes many students dreaded including structure of writing for the screen, and the business of writing. Writers want to write, I'd learned. I recently read a quote about how if we listen we begin to realize how much we don't know and that can be terrifying.

]I learned the answer to a question that had baffled me in a class that examined the structure of writing for the television series. The professor, Pamela Douglas who chairs the television track in the School of Cinematic Arts' screenwriting division, spoke about how feature films differ from television series.

She explained that characters in TV/cable shows truly are our friends. We look forward to spending time with them each week (or more recently for entire weekends as we binge watch their shows).

We know who they are, with their quirks and imperfections and as the storylines unfold we know them better than they know themselves. They don't change very much from week to week; character arcs occur over six or seven seasons.

As a feature film begins we meet a character who, while living through great conflict, becomes self-aware. We watch as the protagonist is transformed so definitively that even after being tested, will not and cannot become the person we were introduced to less than two hours earlier.

I've invited a friend to write a television pilot with me and as I shared what I'd learned with her, I realized that the structure of film vs. television writing is identical to marketing vs. public relations.

The team I work with has been meeting with consultants who are reorganizing our department. Over many months they interviewed leadership throughout the organization. Then they with the editor/writers to identify several dozens of areas and projects that have been divided into individual beats and assignments. As planning continues to take place, the consultants told us that we will need to show how our department added value to the organization.

The editors have been asked to estimate how much time the assignments will require.

I struggled with this until I realized that value PR departments bring to an organization is similar to the journey of the protagonist in a television series.

Here's an example: as I began writing about a new discovery a few years ago I became convinced that it would be life changing for tens of thousands of people. However, it was in its infancy. It existed as an idea within a department; research looked promising but completing and publishing research can take many years.

The marketing department would never invest time or resources on the new discovery--marketing is like a character in a feature film. Systems are ready; resources are assigned to make the public aware so they can access the product or service right away.

But the public relations team is there, patiently working with entire departments over many seasons, supporting real people as ideas are formed, new staff add additional possibilities. Through storytelling and news releases the story reaches individuals within the organization who will need to support it for its success. The PR team is there as research is completed and published and the product/service is green lighted.

At work we're at the end of a character arc that began several years ago. Systems are being put into place to handle the response. Only recently has the project become ready for the marketing team, and the feature film has begun.

This is just one of many ways public relations brings value to an organization but it is important enough that I will be including it in the report I'm working on that will be presented to the consultants next week.