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 Our client, Combined Jewish Philanthropies was recently featured in a Boston Globe South story about Jewish culture in the suburbs south of Boston and was described as an organization that has a "passion for building the community."  CJP President Barry Shrage describes the strategy behind CJP's latest grants by saying, "How do you preserve values, spirituality, and vision into the next generation? You rely on the person-to-person connection.'' Read more about the grants and the history of Jewish culture in the southern suburbs here.

On Monday, SM& was honored to host legendary Boston Globe reporter and editor Walter Robinson for a brown bag lunch. Solomon McCown regularly invites members of the media into our office for an open dialogue on media and communications issues. 

Robinson's wide range of beats include Boston City Hall, the Massachusetts Statehouse, and the Reagan White House. He served as The Globe's Middle East Bureau chief during the first Persian Gulf War and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for his work with The Globe's Spotlight Team on uncovering the Catholic priest abuse scandal. 

Over lunch, Robinson shared his experiences from a professional lifetime of investigative reporting, including how technology and newsroom budget cuts have changed the field. Robinson is the second Pulitzer Prize winner to visit SM&. Wesley Morris, who stopped by our office last spring, was awarded the prize for criticism on April 16.

-  Anne Baker is an account executive at Solomon McCown

We recently sat down with Boston Globe op-ed columnist, Joanna Weiss, to get her perspective on the "New Normal," the focus of our next SM& Presents Panel on May 16.

Click here for more details.

On May 16, join Solomon McCown & Company and a panel of experts for our next SM& Presents event examining what the "New Normal" means for how we live, work and play.

We're less inclined to spend & more inclined to save. Our children are more likely to live at home. Renting outpaces home ownership. There's a disconnect between the jobs being created and the skills needed to fill them. CEOs run, build and innovate in a climate seesawing between fear and hope. What are we to make of it all? How has the Great Recession changed us and how have we adapted to the New Normal?

Panelists
Tripp Jones, Managing Director, New Profit Inc.
Eduardo Tobon, CEO, US Cards & Payments, Santander/Sovereign Bank
Theodore Tye, Managing Partner, National Development

Moderator
Helene Solomon, CEO, Solomon McCown & Company

SM& CEO, Helene Solomon, was featured in the April 16th edition of PRNews discussing the "New Normal" for P.R. agencies when it comes to meeting clients' changing needs.

Click here to read the full article.

The Boston Globe spotted SM& Account Executive Anne Baker (left) at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's annual Young Patron Gala. Baker serves on the Membership Committee of the Young Patron's Board and was also a party committee member. The Young Patron's program seeks to provide an avenue of support to the museum for young working professionals and art lovers while introducing them to like-minded peers. For more information on the program, please visit the website.

We have long heard that social media is an equalizer, but no tool has proved more powerful for "the little guy" than online petitions.

The success of various online petitions has been covered many times by mainstream media, further fuelling the campaign. Petitions on Change.org famously reversed Bank of America's debit card fees and shifted Hilary Clinton's position on Saudi women drivers. More recently, a Change.org petition also helped fuel the criticism towards Apple that forced the corporation to re-evaluate working hours and wages inside Apple's Chinese plants. Trayvon Martin's family has attracted more than 2 million signatures petitioning the Florida Attorney General (and others) to prosecute George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon; it quickly became the fastest-groaning petition in Change.org history and was frozen "due to heavy load." Finally George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder, likely in large part due to public pressure.

While both Apple's and Trayvon Martin's cases were highly publicized, Change.org has usurer in quieter changes as well. A fourth grade class from Brookline, MA successfully campaigned for Universal Studio to leverage the environmental message of "The Lorax." A high school student convinced the Motion Picture Association of America to change the rating of 'Bully' from R to PG-13 to reach a crucial audience. And a New Jersey mom and cancer survivor used Change.org and Facebook to get Matel to produce bald and beautiful Barbies.

Change.org isn't alone in adapting the old activism tool-the petition-to the digital age. Like Change.org, iPetitions lets anyone with internet access start a petition, rally support on- and off-line, and make real change in the world.

And iPetitions also has a lot of success stories. "The one I'd emphasize is the Release Gulnaz petition, started by a UK lawyer, petitioning Afghan President Hamid Karzai to release an Afghan woman who was jailed after being raped," says Gniewko Lubecki, one of the co-founders of iPetitions.com. "After the petition, Karzai agreed to pardon the woman and release her from jail. The petition received a lot of international media attention, including on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, Reuters, etc, and it really helped put pressure on the Afghan government."

With the rise of online petitions, suddenly the little guy -- an everyday kid, consumer, parent -- has the power to force some of the wealthiest corporations to reverse behavior and pressure politicians to make certain decisions. Virtual petitions and the rest of the social media toolkit are democratizing activism.

Lubecki explains: "In the pre-Internet days, it took a big budget, a large staff and a lot of time to create a petition and gather many signatures. But with the right tools on the Internet, anyone with a cause can quickly reach millions of potential signers around the world. This allows average citizens (as opposed merely to well-funded NGOs or lobbying groups) to draw attention and support for their causes. Social media has made online activism more powerful as people can tap into their existing social networks (for example, on Facebook or Twitter) to draw more support, more quickly."

by Catherine Michel, Social Media Manager, Solomon McCown & Company

SM& Senior Vice President, Michal Regunberg, was a guest on WGBH's Emily Rooney Show on April 13. Along with the Boston Globe's Kevin Cullen and the Boston Herald's Dave Wedge, Michal discussed the news of the day including the Red Sox home opener, Rick Santorum's bow out of the elections, the Trayvon Martin case and Ann Romney defending motherhood.

Click here to listen to the whole segment.

Last week, the Boston University student-run newspaper, The Daily Free Press, learned how to deal with a crisis the hard way.

In its annual April Fool's issue, which usually sports Onion-esque satirical content, the newspaper produced Disney-themed stories that prominently featured sexual assault and rape. In light of the recent issues with  two BU hockey players being arrested for sexual assault and rape, the BU and surrounding community responded with outrage. They called for the newspaper's editor, Chelsea Diana, to step down from her position for her poor judgment in running those stories. Within a matter of hours, The Daily Free Press requested and accepted Chelsea Diana's resignation and issued a series of apologies on its website.

The Daily Free Press handled this situation well in some instances and poorly in others. Here are five takeaways that can help anyone better deal with crises:

1.    Anticipate problems before they happen. While you don't have to be a mind reader, make sure you understand your audience and their opinions before publishing content. In this case, BU experienced multiple crises since November revolving around sexual assault and had recently taken strides to eliminate the university's rape culture through the Center for Gender, Sexuality and Activism's Take Back the Night (TBTN) Rally. The Daily Free Press even covered BU's TBTN Rally by live tweeting during the event. In this atmosphere, The Daily Free Press should have anticipated problems with producing satire about sexual assault and rape. As a communications professional, you should always be aware of the issues facing your audiences, and be sensitive to how to communicate with them appropriately about those issues.

2.    Listen everywhere. Though the April Fool's edition was only in print, the conversation around the paper quickly broke out online. By listening to the outrage on Facebook, Twitter and blogs, The Daily Free Press learned of the problems with the issue and realized it needed to respond immediately. Communications professionals should always be aware that conversations aren't in a vacuum-they often switch between media.

3.    React quickly. One thing I will really commend The Daily Free Press on is its almost immediate reaction time. Within 12 hours, the paper issued Chelsea Diana's apology, the Board of Directors' announcement of her resignation and the staff's response. While there still is conversation going on about this crisis, the newspaper's swift action helped reduce how long it could have lasted. In the age of the 24-hour news cycle, communications professionals do not have time to wait to respond to a situation if they want to calm it down. Being nimble, especially on the web, is essential to responding to a crisis.

4.    Have a unified message. Besides the actual content of the April Fool's issue, having one message was one of The Daily Free Press' biggest problems when dealing with this crisis. Among the now former Editor in Chief, the Board of Directors and staff, there was no central message. Chelsea Diana was extremely apologetic and readily admitted her mistakes without blaming the audience for being upset. The Board of Directors was also apologetic, but made sure to portray Chelsea Diana as the villain in the situation. The staff issued a back-handed statement apologizing for the content while pointing fingers at the readers for being too sensitive. While I do commend the newspaper for responding as quickly as possible, they should have also made sure to have a centralized message among these three groups to show the organization's unification. This step is crucial to communicating, whether in a crisis or not.

5.    Learn from your mistakes. A crisis does not have to define your organization forever. The Daily Free Press and Chelsea Diana learned an extremely valuable lesson through this whole debacle, so they should make sure to show their audiences that they are learning from this crisis instead of just telling them that it will never happen again. This is the most important step of a crisis, as it sets the foundation for the future of the organization's success. Only time will tell if The Daily Free Press has learned its lesson and if the community will forgive.

Do you have any more tips for handling a crisis? Tweet at us (@CrisisBostonPR) with your insights.

Ginny Soskey is an Intern at Solomon McCown and senior at Boston University.

SM& Senior Vice President, Ed Cafasso, was featured in the PRSA's spring edition of PR Strategist magazine providing some early lessons learned around the unpredictable and highly publicized 2012 Presidential election.

Click here to read the full article.