Solomon McCown &

Solomon McCown (www.solomonmccown.com), a Boston-based national public relations firm specializing in strategic communications, media relations, public affairs, and crisis management, announced today the opening of its new office in New York City.

Solomon McCown has a track record of working with clients in Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., so the new office is a natural progression that will enable the firm to be closer to existing and prospective clients, as well as established real estate, financial services and healthcare companies, key growth areas for the agency as it celebrates its 10th year in business in 2013.

"As a native New Yorker, I'm excited to put a stake in the ground in New York City," said Helene Solomon, CEO of Solomon McCown & Company.  "While our business continues to grow all over the country, we believe there are targeted opportunities in New York to parlay our expertise in health care reform, real estate permitting and marketing, crisis communications and litigation relations," she added.

The firm has experienced tremendous growth in the last two years, and has already hired 6 new employees in 2013.

The new office will be led by Jonathan Pappas, a seasoned agency veteran who brings a compelling mix of agency, corporate, and real estate experience to New York City.

"We also recognize the importance of having a presence here to provide our clients with an even higher level of service," said Jonathan Pappas, Senior Account Supervisor.  "I look forward to bringing our Boston energy to the media and business capital of the world."  The office is located at 250 Park Avenue.

Click here to watch a short video on the Top 10 reasons Solomon McCown put down roots in the Big Apple.

About Solomon McCown

Based in Boston, Solomon McCown (SM&) delivers strategic communications, media relations, public affairs and crisis management services to regional and national clients facing complex, mission-critical issues. We thrive at the intersection of public policy and business, helping corporations and institutions achieve the definition, recognition and protection needed to meet their goals. Since its founding in 2003, SM& has earned its place among the top public relations firms with award-winning work (70 to be exact) on behalf of some of the most renowned and forward thinking enterprises in the region and nation.

###

It was unintended symbolism: Mayor Thomas Menino speaking at the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce's Annual Meeting - not from the stage where other powerful dignitaries addressed the 1,500 attendees, but from the floor of the Convention Center hall, visible because his image was fed onto giant screens looming above the crowd.

"If you see anybody out there being negative about Boston, step on them," Menino urged the leaders of the city's most influential businesses and institutions.

In that moment, two decades of Boston's political past crystallized. Here was the quintessential "strong mayor," the self-styled urban mechanic who had firmly grasped the city's levers of power and imagery since 1993, unapologetically preaching defiant optimism despite being forced to step down from the spotlight.

Just 12 hours earlier, four leading journalists had debated the positives - and the negatives - that will shape the future of Boston at a panel discussion hosted by Solomon McCown & Company and attended by nearly 150.

With the city preparing to elect only its fourth mayor in 45 years, the SM& Presents event surfaced concerns ranging from leadership styles and Boston's vanishing middle class to the chronic challenges affecting planning, mass transit and public education.

"Given time, dedication and opportunity, a mayor can have a profound impact on the fabric of city," said Meghna Chakrabarti, co-host of WBUR's Radio Boston, who praised Menino's impact on commercial development.

But Chakrabarti also wondered aloud whether "a city can outgrow its mayor" and whether the next mayor might do more to position Boston as "a world-class city."

Referring to a 2012 study by the Boston Indicators Project depicting the widening income gap that parallels the loss of manufacturing jobs, Paul McMorrow, associate editor of CommonWealth magazine, expressed concern that Boston could come to resemble "ancient Rome" - a city of "the wealthy, the not wealthy and no one in between."

McMorrow pinpointed public education as "the big lever a mayor can pull" to recruit and retain a new generation of middle class families.

NECN Business Editor Peter Howe lauded Menino's unique ability to "make people feel good about themselves" and said the biggest challenge for the next mayor may be to "not screw up" the positive momentum the city seems to have achieved.

But Howe also complained about the chronic inability of mass transit to work efficiently on behalf of residents in the city's working class and minority neighborhoods.

"MBTA riders are the most shockingly under-utilized political force in the state," he said, calling for a concerted effort to "rebuild trust" in the MBTA by solving basic service problems and rooting out perceived waste and favoritism.

With a new school superintendent and a new student assignment plan looming on the city's horizon, Boston Globe columnist Joanna Weiss said, "Reforming education will require a big vision from the next mayor."

Good urban schools are integral to the growth and vitality of strong neighborhood communities, argued Weiss, who also spoke passionately about the need to address several emerging public health issues among young women in the city's poorer neighborhoods.

"It's striking to me that Mayor Menino has not hand-picked or groomed anyone to continue his legacy," she added. "It will be left to the public to winnow through this vast group of candidates... and they could pick someone very different."

By Ed Cafasso, Senior Vice President at Solomon McCown & Company

On May 8, more than 150 people joined us at our SM& Presents Panel examining the issues facing the City of Boston in the post-Menino era.

With Boston voters preparing to elect only the city's fourth mayor in 45 years, the event featured a lively discussion of the key issues Mayor Thomas M. Menino's successor will inherit -- commercial and affordable housing development, a growing  gap between the rich and the poor, urban mass transit headaches, recruiting a new school superintendent and implementing a new student assignment plan, what it will take to grow Boston's middle class, and casino gambling.

Our panelists - NECN Business Editor Peter Howe, Boston Globe Columnist Joanna Weiss, Meghna Chakrabarti, co-host of Radio Boston on WBUR-FM, and Commonwealth Magazine Associate Editor Paul McMorrow - began and ended the session with a debate about "leadership style," and whether the next mayor should be a manager, a mechanic or Machiavelli.

Moderated by SM& SVP Ed Cafasso, a former Boston City Hall reporter, it was the 19^thpanel discussion presented by Solomon McCown in the past decade. Thank you to our panelists for their participation and great insights.

Click here to watch what three words attendees today have for the future of Boston.

(left to right) Ashley McCown, Solomon McCown; Peter Howe, NECN; Paul McMorrow, CommonWealth Magaine; Joanna Weiss, Boston Globe; Meghna Chakrabarti, WBUR; Ed Cafasso, Solomon McCown; and Helene Solomon, Solomon McCown

More than 150 attendees at the May 8th panel held at Boston Properties' Atlantic Wharf

Solomon McCown CEO Helene Solomon kicking-off the early morning discussion

(left to right) Ed Cafasso, Vice President at Solomon McCown & Company moderating the media panel featuring: Meghna Chakrabarti, WBUR; Peter Howe, NECN; Joanna Weiss, Boston Globe; and Paul McMorrow, CommonWealth Magazine.

On Monday of this week, Solomon McCown CEO Helene Solomon Tweeted from the Back Bay Association's annual meeting that panels & events across Boston will have to add extra time to the program to announce all the candidates in the room as we enter a busy election season. On Tuesday, the West Roxbury Courthouse Neighborhood Association forum literally didn't have enough space at the table for all the mayoral hopefuls in attendance.

On Wednesday, we saw candidates for several offices at our SM& Presents panel on Boston's post-Menino future. Josh Zakim, a candidate for District 8 Boston City Councilor shook hands during the networking time. A staffer from John Connolly's campaign arrived for the panel. Suffolk County District Attorney and mayoral hopeful Dan Conley joined the in-person discussion and one happening simultaneously on Twitter with some on-message comments-a shrewd strategy to make himself a part of the conversation as it continues online.

I was surprised none of the other candidates chimed in on Twitter when they saw Conley's thoughts posted. It would have been a great way to get some messaging out to the influencers on the panel and in the room while showing off their social media chops. But it's understandable. Some candidates took to the airwaves for interviews this morning. Others were out collecting those all-important signatures. One candidate was at an event sponsored by the current mayor. There's a lot to do in this campaign, and not much time to do it.

As the race heats up, it will be interesting to see where the 24 mayoral hopefuls spend their time in the run-up to the primary. Will candidates maintain Menino-esque 14-hour days? Or will some use the power of social media to speak for them when they're not around? I can't wait to see how it shakes out.

By Amy Derjue, Senior Account Executive at Solomon McCown & Company

The scramble to shape the post-Menino era has begun, and the stakes couldn't be higher for companies and organizations in the real estate industry, healthcare and mission-driven, non-profit sectors.

Today's announcement by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino that he will not seek re-election means the city has the chance to elect only its fourth mayor in 45 years. Since 1968, the year before the Mets won a World Series and America put men on the moon, only three people have led Boston government - Kevin White, Ray Flynn and Menino.

There will be no shortage of candidates for the job, but the seminal question is: Will Bostonians go "big" or small in choosing Menino's successor? While actual Boston residents will cast the ballots, everyone knows the money and blessing of the city's business interests will exert disproportionate weight - especially if most of the key influencers wind up unifying behind a favorite candidate.

Is Boston's next mayor a Paul Grogan, the head of the Boston Foundation, a Peter Meade, the head of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), a Stephen Lynch, the congressman from South Boston now running to succeed former U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry? Or it is City Councilor John Connolly, the only official candidate who had the temerity to get in the race early. Or Councilor Michael Ross, a bridge builder with a strong personal story to tell? Or Councilor Ayanna Pressley, the first African-American woman to serve on the Council? Or any of the dozen or so other councilors and state representativeswhose names are being floated today?

Menino has always been perceived as friendly to the development community and the city's real estate industry is booming as a result in Boston's core. Menino's administration has been wildly successful masterminding a relentless PR push touting the promise of the Fort-Point-Innovation District-Waterfront area.

Favorable financial conditions will continue to propel commercialdevelopment in the oldest real estate market in country, but the next mayor will also control the BRA, which is where the rubber meets the road for commercial real estate and affordable housing.

Boston's globally renowned network of hospitals and academic medical centers provide the jobs that employ one in five Boston residents, driving a big slice of the city's economy, so you can bet that institutional executives in the healthcare sector will want to exercise some control over the destiny of their workforce and expansion plans.

The policies of the next mayor also loom large for mission-driven non-profits, including the city's colleges and universities. A mayor who is friendly to labor uniongrowth and who demands more or larger payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, for example, would have a major impact on the business models of institutions already struggling for stability in the post-recession economy.

And then there are the neighborhood voters, who want crime kept low, their streets plowed free of snow, better family housing, a better urban transportation system, especially in the poorest neighborhoods, and, of course, better schools.

There's never a dull moment when politics and business intersect in Boston, and they haven't had the chance to collide like this since Menino succeeded Flynn in July 1993 and then won election outright that November. The next nine months will produce a political spectacle that most of the city's residents and many of its business leaders have not experienced in 20 years.

One ironic and telling anecdote, the "Menino Won't Run" story was broken Wednesday on Twitter by David Bernstein, the sharp-eyed former political columnist for the Boston Phoenix, which folded a few weeks ago.

Bernstein's scoop is a good reminder of how the media environment has changed since the days when an army of beat reporters and columnists from city's two newspapers and major television stations controlled the flow of game-changing information. It's no longer about where you work or who you work for; when you are online, breaking news is about your connections.

Based on a look at today's papers, it appears the Boston Herald, led by former Boston City Hall Bureau Chief and now Editor-In-Chief Joe Sciacca, had the story early enough to produce a package of blanket coverage in today's edition. The Boston Globe's new editor, Brian McGrory, also a former City Hall reporter and Metro columnist, appears to have paid a personal visit to the Mayor to make sure his paper remained competitive on Menino's departure plans.

By Ed Cafasso, Senior Vice President at Solomon McCown & Company

State House News recently covered our client, the Massachusetts Developmental Disabilities Council, and its 35^th annual legislative reception, "Our Voice: Now More Than Ever." The article discussed Governor Deval Patrick's speech, during which he urged citizens to talk to their legislators and addressed his legislative priorities for those living with developmental disabilities. The article mentions the moving stories legislators and MDDC council members shared during the event.

The cover story in the Globe yesterday was hard to miss - front and center a photo of a medical marijuana grower in New Mexico inspecting his crop. The article, by Jenn Abelson, took a deep dive into the cannabis industry in New Mexico, one of the 17 states whose ranks Massachusetts recently joined by legalizing medical marijuana. New Mexico has one of the country's strictest medical marijuana programs, and could serve as a model for Massachusetts as the Department of Public Health writes their rules, due out in May, regulating the substance.

What stood out in Abelson's article is the special attention the owners of medical marijuana treatment centers pay to their image and messaging. One of the people the reporter talked to was especially careful to refer to the drug as medical cannabis, to refrain from calling it weed, and referred to his clients as patients, not potheads. Others are located in urban areas, and don't have signage outside, in an effort to make patients more comfortable coming in, and to avoid upsetting neighboring businesses. No doubt, as medical marijuana businesses open in Massachusetts, they will encounter the same public opinion hurdles as others have before them.

In this burgeoning industry that is rife with misconceptions and strong opinions, presenting themselves the right way to patients, industry regulators, neighbors and physicians is especially important to potential business owners as they find their way.

By Isabel Black, Account Executive at Solomon McCown & Company

For many early stage start-ups, communications may seem like a daunting and unnecessary task. But it's never too early to start thinking about how you communicate your value to investors, customers, the media and the other important audiences that will be key to driving your company to success.

As part of our work with clean energy business plan competition and accelerator Cleantech Open Northeast, we recently hosted a "Public Relations 101 Workshop" with this year's three regional finalists. Gorham, ME-based Pika Energy, New York City-based Rentricity and Red Ox Systems of Waltham are all working on developing and commercializing truly innovative technologies that stand to change the energy landscape.

While we covered a range of topics, below are three points that garnered a lot of discussion and should serve as important lessons for early stage companies of any kind as they look into planning for communications efforts:

• Priority number one in communications planning should always be messaging. Developing a simple, consistent message that resonates with the audience you're trying to reach is key. Not only does messaging help you communicate to your outside audiences, but it helps build enthusiasm and ensures consistency in how your whole teams talks about your business. Messages can be tweaked depending on the audience too because you're not going to talk to an investor the same way you'd talk to a customer and it's important to remember to always think about your audience.

• When you land an interview in the media, always prepare as if you were going into a business pitch. Start with a concise introduction about you and your company, prepare three messages that you really want to get across to the reporter (and ultimately their reader) and make sure you say them at least once. Don't be afraid to lead the conversation and repeat your messages to make sure they resonate.

• For a company in the fundraising stage, collateral and press kits may seem excessive or costly, but they're important and easy to do on a shoestring budget. A press kit is a basic communications tool that can serve as a great leave behind for reporters will show potential investors that you're thinking ahead about communications. Packaging a backgrounder, biography page, fact sheet and brochure or infographic, in a simple folder with your company logo.

By Kate Plourd, Senior Account Executive at Solomon McCown & Company

BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life) was featured in the National Journal on the organization's experience as an exhibitor at CarolinaFest as part of last week's Democratic National Convention, and the need for outside forces to help drive school improvement.

SM& Senior Vice President, Ed Cafasso, reminds companies and insitutions about the importance of strong public affairs and government relations during the 2012 election season.

Click here to watch.