PRHunter

The Canadian Olympic Committee's decision to give Vancouver 2010 medal winners monetary rewards ($20,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze) will help many athletes with their ongoing training expenses, and in some cases, pay some outstanding bills.
But not all of our elite athletes are financially challenged, and some of them are using both their money and their influence as role models to make a difference.
Bronze medallist Clara Hughes, who skated her last race at the Games, is donating her $10,000 medal winnings to Vancouver's Take a Hike Youth at Risk Foundation. 
Alexandre Bilodeau and Jenn Heil, gold and siver mogul medal winners respectively, are donating $25,000 to causes they support, but both say they had decided to make those donations before the Games began.  Bilodeau's donation is going to the Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres in support of research into cerebral palsy.  Heil's is earmarked for Plan Canada's Because I Am a Girl Foundation.
Speaking also for his fellow medal winner, Bilodeau said, "We're fortunate that we're pretty wealthy now, and we had pretty wealthy parents, too.  That's the least we can do.  We have that chance to give back, and why not?"Why not indeed?
No doubt other elite athletes, from this country and others, also are donating  (whether it's their medal cheques or not) to others less fortunate.
I'm sure I'm one of many keeping an eye out to see what the 23 Team Canada hockey players do with their $20,000 medal bonuses.  Out of curiosity, I went to the NHL Players' Association website and did the math.  For the 2009-2010 season, the 23 Team Canada players earned more than US$120 million in salaries alone. 
Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson was among those arguing that the players should receive those bonuses.  "We certainly understand how much money NHL players get, but they're going to spend a heck of a lot of money on getting their families and that there to watch them.''He went on to point out that they  play at world juniors and men's worlds and aren't paid for that.  I'm confident that a majority of our hockey stars already give generously to causes close to their hearts, so perhaps it doesn't matter if they donate their medal bonuses – a total of $460 million – or not. 
But here's a thought boys. 
Top earner Sidney Crosby's US$9 million salary is more than three times what the Own The Podium program spent on biathlon over the past five years.
So in the long list of worthy recipients for donations, maybe you could – as your final team action –  consider supporting fellow athletes who work their butts off to excel in a sport that doesn't enjoy hockey's visibility.
That would be quite a legacy and yet another reason for all of us to be proud of Team Canada 2010.  

The Canadian Olympic Committee's decision to give Vancouver 2010 medal winners monetary rewards ($20,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze) will help many athletes with their ongoing training expenses, and in some cases, pay some outstanding bills.

But not all of our elite athletes are financially challenged, and some of them are using both their money and their influence as role models to make a difference.

Bronze medallist Clara Hughes, who skated her last race at the Games, is donating her $10,000 medal winnings to Vancouver's Take a Hike Youth at Risk Foundation. 

Alexandre Bilodeau and Jenn Heil, gold and siver mogul medal winners respectively, are donating $25,000 to causes they support, but both say they had decided to make those donations before the Games began.  Bilodeau's donation is going to the Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres in support of research into cerebral palsy.  Heil's is earmarked for Plan Canada's Because I Am a Girl Foundation.

Speaking also for his fellow medal winner, Bilodeau said, "We're fortunate that we're pretty wealthy now, and we had pretty wealthy parents, too.  That's the least we can do.  We have that chance to give back, and why not?"

Why not indeed?

No doubt other elite athletes, from this country and others, also are donating  (whether it's their medal cheques or not) to others less fortunate.

Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson was among those arguing that the players should receive those bonuses.  "We certainly understand how much money NHL players get, but they're going to spend a heck of a lot of money on getting their families and that there to watch them.''

He went on to point out that they  play at world juniors and men's worlds and aren't paid for that. 

But here's a thought boys. 

Top earner Sidney Crosby's US$9 million salary is more than three times what the Own The Podium program spent on biathlon over the past five years.

So in the long list of worthy recipients for donations, maybe you could – as your final team action –  consider supporting fellow athletes who work their butts off to excel in a sport that doesn't enjoy hockey's visibility.

That would be quite a legacy and yet another reason for all of us to be proud of Team Canada 2010.  

I jumped into blogging with great glee.  I enjoyed how it sparked ideas and became part of my mind-set as so many things seemed so worthy of a post.

While the ideas kept coming, other things intruded.  I got caught up in work prior to a trip to Mexico then worked to catch up again when I returned.  After that, I spent two weeks totally immersed in the Olympics, watching 10 to 12 hours per day.

Many folks used Vancouver 2010 as an opportunity to share news and opinions through their blogs, on Twitter, and elsewhere.  While the Games became a wonderful shared experience for many, I confess that I got into and stayed in my own little bubble.  I committed what is probably the biggest blog sin:  I went AWOL.

I'm not seeking absolution.  What's done is done. But if you're still checking out my blog occasionally, I promise to be more diligent in the future. 

At least until the 2012 Games in London!

I believe it's important to take some time twice a year to indulge in the 3 Rs – rest, recreation, and rejuvenation.  This year, I really indulged – not just in December but also through mid-January. I did all the work I had to do but avoided anything else more mind-taxing than, "What do you mean you're out of Blue Light?  Now what do I do"?

I had ideas for some blog subjects but kept putting them off.  Now, the earthquake in Haiti has pushed those thoughts aside.

Like the December 2004 tsuami in South-East Asia, this catrastrophe is overwhelming, but hopefully like the tsunami, it will encourage hundreds of thousands of those more fortunate to open their hearts and wallets to help.  Although I donated through the Canadian Red Cross, there are many other outstanding NGOs ready to do whatever is needed. Many are mentioned on Twitter (#Haiti) and on the Facebook group Earthquake Haiti.

This is a country that can use our help in the best of times.  According to a story in the Ottawa Citizen, 70 per cent of Haitians live on less than $2 a day.  Now, in the worst of times, resources are needed not only for immediate search and rescue efforts but also for food, water, medicine, and shelter to help keep survivors alive in the following hours and days.
 
These survivors have very little – if anything – to fall back on. That's just a reality of living on less than $2 a day.  Now many will have to do it on $0 a day.

That's where we come in.

Our governments should – and hopefully will – assist with relief, search and rescue, and re-building, but If we can see our way – as individuals – to give what we would spend on even one movie admission or a few double-doubles, our donations will go a long way to save lives now.

As usual in any community, debates are standard fare.  In the PR measurement community, two ongoing discussions centre around the use of advertising value equivalencies (AVEs) and the term ROI.  (More on the latter at a later date.)

Where AVEs are concerned, there seem to be two extreme views – they're useless as effective measurement tools or they serve as a valuable evaluation methodology.

I, like many others I'm sure, tend to fall in the middle.

I believe AVEs can be very useful if they're used to measure outputs, i.e., to evaluate the practitioner's abilities and capabilities in attracting media attention. The information gathered also can help direct subsequent campaigns.

More importantly, perhaps, is that high AVEs can help justify publicity expenditures to organizational bean counters.  In other words, they produce a figure that can help budget holders see the value in spending money to garner media publicity.

One example of this is the space trip Guy Laliberté (Cirque de Soleil) launched (literally) in 2009, partially I'm sure for his own enjoyment but also to promote his One Drop Foundation, a nonprofit organization he created to increase awareness of the millions of people who don't have access to clean water.

Was it worth the $35 million he spent on his own personal star trek?

He and many others, I believe, would say "yes."

According to Montreal's Influence Communication, the media coverage (television, Internet, radio, and newspaper) generated by his space visit  reached a media audience of 878.8 million people in 71 countries. Computed with no weighting or factoring, the AVE was valued at more than $592 million. Where the foundation is concerned, 92 per cent of the coverage was earned between Sept. 30 and Oct. 14 when his Poetic Social Mission in Space show was broadcast.

To a bean counter, this is the equivalent of a juicy porterhouse steak!  .

However, and here's what puts me in the middle, while the measurement of the outputs show great value, what about the outcomes with target audiences?

Was there an increase in awareness of the foundation among key publics and stakeholders?  If so, did this awareness generate positive perceptions?  Did more potential donors and key opinion leaders engage with the foundation?  Did donations to the foundation increase?

If nothing happened back here on earth to benefit the foundation, the trip and that wonderful AVE add up to a lot of sizzle – but no steak.

While whining to a friend about Alice's latest trick – printing out test sheets on my printer – I mentioned I had caught her in the act. As I pictured it, I recalled she used her right paw, and that started me wondering whether or not cats could be  be right- or left-handed.

Google to the rescue.

Psychologists at Queen's University in Belfast did a study on this subject last August.  Using 42 cats as test subjects, they found that most cats do indeed favour one paw over the other and that it mostly boils down to gender.

Female cats it seems are primarily right-handled, while males tend to be lefties.

Some comments on the site were from members of both the "who cares?" crowd the "this is nothing new" bunch.

It was new to me though, probably because I had never thought about it before.

If it's new to you, now you know. 

If you – and the rest of the world knew it all along – all I can say is I'd rather ponder this than spend time following the escapades of the biggest Cat in the world.

I have a tremendous respect for journalism as a profession and for journalists who stay true to what they learned in J-School – that the news should be objective and balanced.

For some, however, a budding devotion to such time-honoured values are tested during their first experiences in those newsrooms where owners rule with an iron fist of ideology.

So while a reporter may want to uphold the highest standards of journalism, it's difficult – if not impossible – to do so in an environment where the world view skews to the extreme right or left.

Speaking of ideology, I don't want to be mean, but I can't think of those shouting heads on some cable news channels as journalists. As a species, they're more like an unholy cross between a pit bull and a circus barker.

Jon Stewart skewered one such pit barker on Fox on Dec. 8.  Following clips of Fox anchor (and Standford graduate ) Gretchen Carlson saying she had to google to find the meaning of "czar" and "ignoramus," Stewart wondered:  "How do you get a job on television if you appear to be one of those people who need to pin their address to their coat so a stranger can help them find their way home?"

Maybe Stanford's standards are not as high as I thought?  Nah. It's consistent with how Fox relates to its viewers and with its political views.  (After all, she was inspired to seek the definitions of these "difficult" words in relation to stories about Fox enemy number 1:  President Obama.)

I don't choose to get my news from such  right- or left-wing channels, so unless I watch the Daily Show, these pit barkers can't shed their ideologies on the furniture in the living room of my mind.

Here are some of Alice's and my favourite quotes.

• In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him.  ~Dereke Bruce
• If cats could talk, they wouldn't.  ~ Nan Porter
• A catless writer is almost inconceivable.  It's a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys.  ~ Barbara Holland
• The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it.  ~ Doug Larson
• The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer.  ~ Paula Poundstone
• Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.  ~ Pam Brown
• After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word.  And has filed it for reference.  ~ Charlotte Gray
• I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult.  It's not.  Mine had me trained in two days.  ~ Bill Dana
• Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later.  ~ Mary Bly
• The cat is the only animal which accepts the comforts but rejects the bondage of domesticity.  ~ Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon
• Most cats, when they are Out want to be In, and vice versa, and often simultaneously.  ~ Louis J. Camuti
• People that hate cats will come back as mice in their next life.  ~ Faith Resnick
• Dogs have owners, cats have staff.  ~ Author Unknown
• I put down my book, The Meaning of Zen, and see the cat smiling into her fur as she delicately combs it with her rough pink tongue.  "Cat, I would lend you this book to study but it appears you have already read it."  She looks up and gives me her full gaze.  "Don't be ridiculous," she purrs, "I wrote it."  ~ Dilys Laing, "Miao"
• Cats are smarter than dogs.  You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.  ~ Jeff Valdez

It's easy for some of us to complain about journalists when they don't dedicate what we think is sufficient space or time to our stories, or even worse, don't cover our stories at all.

But before we open that next bottle of whine, how about a little perspective.

A couple of weeks ago, 27 journalists were killed in the Philippines, prompting the International News Safety Institute to call Nov. 23, 2009 "the blackest day in the history of journalism in the Philippines, already one of the deadliest nations on earth for the news media." 

According to Reporters Without Borders, 62 journalists worldwide were killed in 2008, while 929 were physically attacked or threatened, and 129 were kidnapped. The deadliest countries:  Iraq, Pakistan, and the Philippines.

Sadly, the Media Ticking Clock puts the number killed so far this year at more than 100, and there are more potentially deadly days to come before they can safely put this year behind them.

Yesterday (Dec. 3), three journalists were among the close to two dozen people killed in Somalia.  Although Mustafa Haji Abdinur didn't know of these three additional victims when he accepted his 2009 International Press Freedom Award on Nov. 25, the Somalia correspondent for Agence France-Presse made a pertinent point and a poignant plea as he paid tribute to six colleagues murdered in his country earlier in the year. 

"Friends, if a journalist is killed the news is also killed.  We need your support now more than ever.  Please don't forget us."

Kind of puts that reporter no-show at the dog show into perspective.

First, I am not a big Tiger Woods fan, although I do respect and admire his incredible golf skills.

Second, I may be in the minority, but as a PR person, I feel that the statement he posted on his website should be a sufficient mea culpa for most critics.  It was too long in coming, but at least it arrived.  And while it was a little whiny in the middle, at least there was a middle and not a terse one-line comment.

Anyone capable of reading between the lines can certainly glean sufficient information. I certainly don't need – or want – the sordid details.  I'm satisfied that he has admitted to his failings ("I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves.")

He demonstrated class in sticking up for his wife ("Elin has always done more to support our family and shown more grace than anyone could possibly expect.")

I'm also glad he says he has learned something ("I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves") and that he has issued a "profound apology" to  "all of those who have supported me over the years."

For die-hard Tiger fans and those whose glass houses are still intact, this may not be enough. But unless they can think of anything the could do – short pulling a Hiro and going back in the past to make things right – I think we should all move on to something that can actually affect our lives.