Take of the Week:
I absolutely love Matt See’s take on where communications should sit in an organization. Early on in my career, I used to think that legal approval was just an obstacle to a fast-paced news cycle. However, once I went in-house and learned that their job is to protect the company and our job was to promote it (and also protect it), I saw the value in partnering with legal to ensure accuracy and protection.

Pulling the thread on his take, I would also argue that PR/Comms does not always have to sit in Marketing. Yes, sometimes this can make perfect sense from an organizational perspective; but sometimes it makes sense for it to sit with Legal or even Finance. Companies have to determine what are the goals of the Comms team and then assess from there.

Bonus Take of the Week:
Lexi Reese’s anecdote is not a PR take per se, but certainly a word to the wise. I often joke that I suffer from “PR Paranoia” but there’s also some validity to it. You never know when someone might accidentally say something they shouldn’t have. Prior to doing fractional work, I was in-house for 10 years. I would tell employees that if they are sitting on undisclosed information, do not talk about it in public. If anything, assume that there’s a reporter next to you while at a bar or coffee shop; that way, nothing will leak out.

Laugh of the Week:
The 90s pop culture reference in Keith Berman’s post is awesome, and honestly, so is the take!

The Rest of the Takes:
- Is all PR good PR? Maybe, but maybe not according to Adam Ritchie
- Megan Hanson wrote about how PR’s biggest problem is the calendar
- Claire posted a harrowing tale of monitoring for both real and fake mentions
- Rachel Huff posted a great checklist for a successful RFP
- Sanya had a strong take on why three months of PR is not a great number:

That’s it for this week’s takes, thanks for reading.

-Brian
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkramer/