The Power of the Purple Brain

In her recent blog post “The Power of Human Interaction,” Mary lauded the value of the face-to-face meeting.

After we learn more about our clients’ business goals, the next step is to develop a plan. And in my opinion, the most effective plans are developed under the guidance of an efficient pubic relations team that can collaborate to meet the clients’ objectives.

When people ask about Lilja Inc., they are often surprised by how small our company actually is (we have five staff members, for those of you taking notes).

But being a part of a small agency means that we are an agile team that can pool together our unique talents at a moment’s notice to form what we lovingly refer to as “The Big Purple Brain” (of course, purple is the official Lilja color).

This intellectual cooperative is the single greatest resource we can offer our clients, as the ideas that come from these Purple Brain sessions inspire, challenge and guide our work. And like Superman taking Lois Lane to the Fortress of Solitude, clients are involved in these sessions and can lead to an even more powerful outcome.

In one meeting, our collaborative work swiftly navigated the complex task of developing positioning and key messages. In another, we reviewed a broad media relations approach suggested by a client and developed a more honed, strategic campaign.

To lift from a well known ad campaign: “What can Purple do for you?”

Almost anything you throw our way.

- Alex

The Power of Human Interaction

We recently hosted a new client at our offices, a wonderful woman who is launching a new product that meets a real need in the marketplace. (Note: More to come on this!)

We could have arranged introductions via the electronic world we all inhabit: We could have conferenced her in, emailed our ideas and followed up via text, and friended her on Facebook to social network our way to a working relationship.

Instead, she suggested the old fashioned approach: meeting face to face. She flew in to meet with us on our home turf. We listened and learned about her expertise, saw her quick laugh, experienced firsthand her wonderful wit. We brainstormed ideas together, having fun all the way. We broke bread together. We pondered approaches and made great progress. As we drove her to and from the airport, we chatted about kids and family, interests and hobbies. It was time well spent, indeed.

How many times do we take the shortcut in human interactions? How many times do we send a text or an email when it would be better to pick up the phone? How many times do we send our expressions of concern when our presence would make the difference?

Years ago, I developed media tours for a new product launch, one to the California tech market, the other to consumer media in New York. On the way, my client and I stopped at a nondescript Midwestern suburban hotel restaurant to meet with an editor of a small journal. We ate a rather bland meal while the local Rotary Club sang “God Bless America” loudly in the next room.

The editor reflected, “No one ever comes to see me.” But we did. He tried out the product, liked it and wrote a positive review, which was later syndicated in U.S. and Japanese newspapers. My client landed a positive business deal as a result of the overseas coverage.

Face to face is powerful; sometimes you just have to leave home. Never resist the impulse; it can make the difference because, when all is said and done, we are human beings first, business people second.

- Mary Lilja

A Sight for Sore Eyes

For the last few days, the world has watched the tragic events in Japan unfold. In these moments of chaos and destruction, we hold our breath, watch and wait for a sign of hope.

My next door neighbor is from Japan and has family who lives just north of Tokyo. As she explained to me, her family may be relatively safe, inland from the tsunami-ravaged coasts and 200 miles away from the Fukushima nuclear plant, but food and water are still scarce.

Just the other day, I saw a video posted on several blogs of helicopter crews from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ronald Reagan – one of the first Naval vessels to arrive off the coast of Japan – delivering aid to the people of Sendai as part of Operation Tomodachi, which translated means “Operation Friendship.” I was overjoyed to see our nation reach out to people suffering from the unimaginable horror of this disaster.



Help is beginning to arrive for these people, but writing this post in a warm office with a fresh cup of coffee, lunch waiting for me in the refrigerator, I am motivated to help. So, I have made my donation to the Red Cross.

As you read this, I challenge you to do what you can to help these people in their time of need as well by making a donation.

-- Alex

Marco Polo SEO

Rather than throwing out some academic definition of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I’ll sum it up as this: Think of the Internet as a big swimming pool of people playing Marco Polo. The person yelling “Marco” is looking for some sort of information using a search engine and the ones yelling “Polo” are all the possible search results. Only in this game, the one yelling “Polo” the loudest gets tagged first and wins.

It’s not hard to up the volume on your website or blog’s SEO. Playing by some simple rules when writing a news release, website, or anything else purposed for the web, can help all those people yelling “Marco” find you.

While search engines’ goal is help users find exactly what they’re looking for, they are merely robots and need help knowing which online sources are experts. They rely on the text of any given web page, placing importance on the words at the top of the page, URLs, anchor text, page summary text and more. Making sure these key areas are clear and hold important phrases is paramount to making sure the Marcos of the internet find your Polos.

Of course, some key phrases have multiple meanings. For example, someone searching for images of the Venetian merchant and explorer Marco Polo mostly will find drawings of the historic figure … and this slightly off-topic image that does have “Marco Polo” in its URL.

-- Alicia DeMatteo

The Wisdom of Mark Twain

For years, I had a quote from Mark Twain on the walls of my corporate cubicle: “I am an old man and have known many troubles, and most of them never happened.”

This is the story of my life. You might have guessed by now that I’m a professional worrier. Partly I am paid to worry as part of my job. We do a lot of implications thinking in this line of work: if we say this here, how might it play out later? Is it best to be proactive and tell our story?

Another part is my nature – I come from a long line of worriers. My mother was a world-class worrier, although she doesn’t worry much anymore, she says. Life is pretty good, now that she’s 80.

But I don't want to wait that long.

So, day by day, the challenge is to be mindful about it. There’s a difference between worrying enough to be productive so we don’t make missteps in the present – things like misspelled words in news releases, or incorrect figures on budgets – and worrying so much that life becomes a nightmare, full of imagined bad things that never happen.

Sometimes I do it well and keep things in balance. Sometimes I don’t. It is a practice.

Mark Twain’s quote nudges me to remember.

- Mary Lilja