How to Make Meaningful Connections in a Distanced Society

Keeping six feet apart, seeing your coworkers’ faces through a screen, and forgetting what your favorite office plan looks like are just a few of the new normal scenarios that we’ve all been dealing with over the past few months. It’s almost hard to believe that 2020 was a real year at all – but it was, and from it, we’ve learned a lot of lessons. 

But one thing that remains a question in the back of everyone’s mind is how do we continue to stay connected? How do we form meaningful relationships with our clients and partners through a screen? How do we make sure we’re communicating with purpose with all the new platforms and styles?

Kite Hill PR is the organizer of Communications Week, a week-long event series that brings together professionals from various levels of the marketing, media and communications industries. This year we have taken on the task of answering these questions, and many more. Industry experts, brand leaders and organization movers and shakers will be touching on how to keep authentic connections between brands and consumers, new agency structures and how to empower workforces and  the latest and greatest tech solutions to power connectivity. 

It’s time to embrace all of the new ways of connecting and doing business globally. It’s time to start talking about what work-life balance really looks like, and the societal impacts we’re seeing today. It’s time to talk about authentic connections – because this remote landscape is here to stay.

Communications Week will be taking on a virtual, global format during the week of October 19. For more information on the event, and registration options, go check out commsweek.com for all the latest updates. 

- Talia Firenze, Account Associate

The Five Enterprise Tech Trade Publications You Need to Read

Is “Enterprise technology” the latest industry buzz phrase?  Or a vast, all-encompassing description for emerging technology platforms that serve a range of businesses?  

Enterprise technology refers to the concept of information technology (IT) resources and data that are shared across an enterprise. Boiled down, what this means is that the enterprise technology industry touches on many different verticals. It’s also pervasive, and an integral engine running all sorts of industries, from healthcare (ever wondered how a major hospital keeps track of thousands of patient records?) to retail (enter contactless shopping in the world of COVID) to security (hello, cybersecurity concerns as businesses allow employees to deal with sensitive company information as we all work from anywhere).

So how can you stay up to speed on what can sometimes be a hard-to-wrap-your-head-around industry landscape like enterprise technology?

You can start with this list and consider it your new best friend. While there are a multitude of publications out there that cover enterprise technology, here are the five trade publications that any industry professional should be reading consistently if they want to be on top of the latest news and trends in enterprise technology. Happy reading!

1. CIO provides insight and analysis on IT trends. Targeted more toward information technology leaders, it features compelling news and commentary from the executive enterprise technology community. 

2. Enterprise Technology Review provides news, views, and advice on the technologies most affecting today’s enterprise community.

3. eWeek covers the latest trends, in-depth analysis, and reviews of new products in enterprise technology. It helps keep enterprise professionals up to date on the trends impacting their markets.

4. IT Pro is a comprehensive technology news and reviews hub for IT professionals, covering a wide range of verticals within the enterprise technology landscape, from AI to AR to smart cities.

5. ZDNet’s breaking news, analysis, and research keep business technology professionals in the know with the latest IT trends, issues and events.

In many respects, understanding enterprise technology is understanding how most complex, global industries operate. Making these publications part of your media diet will make any technology-focused executive smarter and more effective.

- Mackenzie Gavel, Account Supervisor

Running a High-Performance PR Team in a Virtual Environment

Let me be a broken record for a moment and re-remind you that the last six months have brought more disruption than Google did in the mid-2000s. 

Every industry is in perpetual survival mode, and PR is no exception. In mid-March, PR teams were either standing in front of a crisis management firehose, crafting messaging for stakeholders, or steeling for budget cuts and layoffs. Some had to deal with both ends of the spectrum. Confronted with smaller budgets and higher expectations, PR practitioners joined the country in adapting to work in near isolation. 

Our team at Kite Hill PR has always been agile, dynamic and tight-knit (quite literally, we pioneered an agile approach to PR with the PR Sprint™ Workflow). Our office is not only the place where we meet with clients and ring the bell when major wins are secured, it’s the place where we motivate and push each other to do our best work. Pre-pandemic there was a sense that the physical office space was what was needed to be a successful team. Now, after working remotely for six months and addressing roadblocks head on, we’ve realized that our team was purpose-built to lead high-performing communications programs for our clients, regardless of where we are. 

How do we do it? Below are a few initial tips to ensure your team is motivated, connected, and ultimately driving successful results for clients. 

Communicate – Then Communicate Some More

One of the biggest challenges faced when working remotely is miscommunication. Digital communication presents new ways to misinterpret messages – there is very little body language to rely on, few context clues, and nearly zero way to interpret tone of voice. This means teams must initiate communications across multiple platforms. Identify the way clients or teammates prefer to communicate and use that as your primary communication platform. So, pick a communications ‘lane,’ but don’t discard other methods.

Perhaps your client prefers talking on the phone – that’s great! It is easier to be clear about activity and expectations over the phone, but the best next step is to send a follow up message recapping your conversation so everyone is aligned. Another example is that a teammate you manage prefers to get real-time feedback over Slack – this is beneficial because you might be able to better articulate that feedback. The next best steps here are to recap your conversation over email and, in your next 1:1, ask if they have any questions and clearly understand the feedback.

Instill Trust Among Clients and Team Members

During times of uncertainty it’s important to remember that clients and co-workers are humans and that in these situations the initial response is typically to put your guard up and not be as openly trusting. This is when PR agencies and in-house teams can be truly tested and must continually build stronger relationships with clients and the business units they support. In a virtual world not all “typical” communications activity resonates. As the pandemic began, one thing we did at Kite Hill was to immediately shift our way of thinking about PR. We positioned ourselves as trusted advisors to our clients by pivoting our PR programs in three key ways: 

• Shifting events to virtual formats

• Revising thought leadership campaigns

• Refining internal and external communications 

Not only did this nimble shift in strategy support our clients’ needs, it instilled additional trust. They knew they could count on us to guide them through confusing and delicate situations, while simultaneously continuing to prioritize their high level business objectives. When our clients saw the positive results of adapting to this mindset, we decided to create a playbook about it. 

Remain Agile in Your Work  

The above example also showcases why agility is a key ingredient to creating a high-performing communications team in a virtual environment. Pre-pandemic, we used our PR Sprint™ Workflow on a regular basis to enlist the entire team’s thinking on challenges in stand-up meetings.  During lock-down, we adapted our sprint meetings to virtual ones by using Monday.com, which we’re now using agency-wide for project management as well.  

An agile mindset during a crisis allows PR professionals to shine if they are able to quickly pivot and adjust to unknown situations.  While we continue to do mid- to long-term planning, we approach every day with the knowledge that anything can happen and air tight strategies might need to shift in a nanosecond. Clients’ work environments and priorities are changing faster than ever before, and will continue to do so over the next year, at least. Teams who have a nimble mindset, who are willing to regularly ask questions and reassess activity as needed, can give clients or the businesses they serve the assurance that their PR programs will continue with strategic, forward-momentum. 

Embodying agility in PR leads back to instilling trust and strategic communication. Our team knows that each decision our agency makes is done with the utmost consideration for each team member, and that those decisions are communicated in a timely and transparent manner. 

If we’ve learned one thing over the last six months, it’s that regardless of where we’re working, we can always create meaningful partnerships with our clients, remain strategic and thoughtful with our PR programs, and build a stronger sense of camaraderie and trust within our agency.

- Emma Wolfe, Senior Director

How to Plan a Virtual Team Retreat

Remember company retreats?  At Kite Hill PR, our annual retreat remained a priority, even as a remote happening.  We value our retreat as not only an opportunity for fun, team building and education, it’s an essential part of professional development and team member retention. Agendas are usually ambitious, and getting alignment on priorities and objectives with senior leadership is key and ideally happens early in the planning process for a robust program and overall worthwhile experience.

This year, we pivoted from in-person to virtual with our retreat.  But the planning process and logistics were not that much different. If anything, it's more important than ever to provide team members with the chance to collaborate outside of their day-to-day client work in order to stretch creative muscles and build relationships with each other. It’s also critical to have fun! The thing I miss most about being in an office environment is the occasional outburst and fun stories that take place around the water cooler. A serious fun factor should be a strong element in the retreat agenda. 

Variety is the spice of life. That’s why, when planning a retreat, I make sure to spread things out and pace the program to ensure each topic has its moment to shine. Rather than providing three hours of updates on the state of the business, spread those office updates and workshops throughout the day, sprinkled with things that team members won’t be expecting. (A huge bonus of this virtual environment is that external guest speakers are wonderful resources to be considered. The logistics are easier, too!)

The skeleton of the agenda below is how I planned and organized our Kite Hill virtual retreat, which overwhelmingly garnered rave reviews for its useful content.  

1. Opening (Internal)

2. Guest Speaker (External)

3. Team-Wide Activity (Internal)

4. Lunch Breakouts/Brainstorm (Internal)

5. Interactive Guest Speaker (External)

6. Business Update (Internal)

7. Interactive Creative Activity (External)

8. Closing (Internal) 

The highest marks went to the guided watercolor painting class. (We also had an ergonomics professional provide guidance on setting up a productive and comfortable workspace!)

It’s easy not to prioritize professional development and team-building opportunities like this, but I urge you not to fall into that trap. This day proved that even though our team members aren’t physically together, we can still learn, grow, exercise our creative muscles and make memories. 

- Rachel Hadley, COO

Why an Agile Workflow is Crucial in a Work From Anywhere Environment

Six months ago, a flexible work policy included working from home a few times a month,  but now for many companies, that policy means working full-time from anywhere in the world. The pandemic forced many companies and organizations to quickly pivot to a more agile workstyle nearly overnight. Going to a work-from-home structure left some offices scrambling to make sometimes difficult adjustments, leaving employees struggling with low productivity and lower morale. 

While our own experience at Kite Hill PR was not without hiccups, the fact that, years ago, our agency adopted an agile workflow — the same used by the world’s most innovative technology companies — made our own transition a bit more seamless. Using Slack and constant communication made not physically being in the office just as productive and collaborative. In early March, our leadership made the call to work from home and acted fast to ensure our team had all the tools needed for success, no matter what zip code we were logging in from each day.

Being agile is a core value at Kite Hill. In fact, a few years ago, our agency pioneered the agile approach to PR by creating the PR Sprint™ Workflow playbook to accomplish goals for our clients. But in our WFH transition, we needed to adopt what had been an in-person process to a virtual one. We began using Monday.com to supercharge our Sprint meetings, which had the added benefit of being a tool for project management, managing editorial and social calendars and more. Our virtual sprint process has made us even more collaborative and enables us to train the collective brainpower of the agency on our client’s goals.     

I relish the collaborative and agile energy that these Sprint aka “stand-up” meetings provide. While virtual office reality has put our agility to the test, I am happy to report, we’re passing with flying colors. While there are certain aspects that a physical office environment provides such as passing conversations in the breakroom, we owe much of our success to the digital practices we already had in place. 

Agility has allowed us to move forward as an agency (our Founder and CEO, Tiffany Guarnaccia, recently shared more on this subject with agility experts Agilify). It was a critical element to our ability to move quickly on behalf of our clients during this disruptive time. In fact, we even wrote a playbook on navigating disruption via agile communications, and today, it’s why we successfully deliver wins for clients, day to day, entirely online across multiple time zones. We even had our recent annual company retreat via Zoom, complete with training sessions on digital body language led by Erica Dhawan and an ergonomic training session from  Barbara Tourtellott topped off with a guided virtual team painting class thanks to Priscilla Moreno. 

While the timeframe of returning to our office remains unclear, the future of our agency and work for clients is stronger than ever thanks to our agile workstyle and culture. 

- Kyle Murray, Senior Account Executive

Best Virtual Events for Technology, Advertising and Media in 2020

In the super dynamic media, enterprise tech and advertising industries, the only thing that feels consistent in this current climate is….inconsistency. And while this “new normal” path is presenting tons of potholes along the way, there’s one constant that hasn’t changed: the need for our industry to rally around champions and trailblazers, celebrate the moments of success, continually learn from the best minds in our industry and participate in important conversations. So how is that possible with uncertainty around every bend?

The answer lies in virtual events. Here is a list of this season’s can’t-miss, best virtual events in the media, advertising and enterprise technology worlds that will keep you up-to-date and involved with the who’s who and what’s happening for 2020.  

Bonus: Many of these events are more accessible than ever, with attendance either free or at a vastly reduced price.

Tech Crunch Disrupt 

September 14-18, 2020

TechCrunch Disrupt offers attendees five days of non-stop online programming with two big focuses: founders and investors shaping the future of disruptive technology and ideas and startup experts providing insights to entrepreneurs. With almost 10,000 attendees from all around the world, hundreds of startups across a variety of categories get the chance to tell their stories to the masses. 

Digiday Media Buying Summit

September 16-18, 2020

Unless you’ve been living under a rock and without wifi, you know it’s been a tough run for media agencies and the last few months have been tumultuous. This event will explore how agencies are changing the way they operate with remote working, the dreaded social platforms tumble, industry regulations, and ins and outs of brand safety – just to name a few.  Digiday has always known how to curate a great conference and this one is no different.

Ad Age Next: Food & Beverage

September 22, 2020

Clearly a lot has evolved in the last few months, and Ad Age Next: Food & Beverage is here to take a bite out of the hottest topics in the industry, exploring the seismic shifts faced by food and drink marketers and restaurant operators, who were all forced to rethink their long-term strategies overnight.

Advertising Week #AW2020 

September 29 - October 8, 2020

AW2020 is a reimagined virtual event for a global audience. Their agenda is purpose-built to bring the marketing, media, technology, and creative industries together to drive change. Attendees can look forward to riveting sessions from senior leaders, learning new skills, networking with new business leads, and gaining the tools and insights that can elevate your career. A-List speakers include Kevin Hart, Kristen Bell and LL Cool J, to name a few.

2020 GeekWire Virtual Summit

October 12-13, 2020

The 2020 GeekWire Summit will be a fully immersive virtual event. It will feature in-depth fireside chats, panel discussions and power talks with some of the top leaders in technology, business and entrepreneurship. Speakers to be announced in the coming weeks and we’ll be watching that closely – stay tuned!

Adweek Convergent TV Summit

October 13, 2020

As the supply of streaming services increases, so does the demand for unique content and marketing solutions to attract and engage new audiences. Adweek’s second Convergent TV Summit will explore the ways in which the television, advertising and media-buying industries have evolved along with viewer consumption as a result of this new landscape. 

Modern Retail Summit

October 14-16, 2020

Gone are the days when retailers sold primarily through brick and mortar, and online was an afterthought. Today’s successful retailers often have to juggle a variety of selling channels -- from your own website and stores to wholesale retailers to online marketplaces. This event will make sure attendees walk away knowing where to invest their time and money in the future of retail. Produced by Digiday’s crackerjack team, speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

WSJ Tech Live 

October 19-21, 2020

Like many major media outlets, the Wall Street Journal is reimagining the event experience, bringing the “Magic of Laguna” (their previous IRL location)  to the living room for their most ambitious WSJ tech live yet. Unscripted interviews with game-changers around the globe, exclusive first-look demos, a new spin on networking — it’s all part of a multi-platform program that will deliver one shared moment where tech’s most prominent headlines are discussed, debated and made. Speakers include top executives from the biggest tech companies, including Snap and Intel. 

Communications Week

October 19-23, 2020

Communications Week 2020 is a week-long event series that traditionally brings together top professionals from the marketing, media and communications industries to talk about the most pressing issues and topics. This year’s conference is not only virtual, it’s free. And the theme is Connections - and with that, the event is going to embrace all of the new ways of connecting and doing business globally.  Full disclosure, Communications Week was founded by Kite Hill PR Founder and CEO Tiffany Guarnaccia and the Kite Hill team plays a big part in its curation and production.

2020 ANA Masters of Marketing

October 21-23, 2020

As we all know, the marketing and advertising industry is facing unique and complex challenges that require creative thinking and collective action. At the 2020 ANA Masters of Marketing Conference: A Virtual Experience, CMOs from leading brands will share their inspirational strategies and approaches to help brands and businesses navigate these difficult times and drive sustained success. 

Digiday Future of TV Summit 

November  4-6, 2020

At the Digiday Future of TV Summit, the top brand and agency executives will discuss the evolution of television advertising and how leaders in the industry are making their TV investments work. Past speakers consisted of big-name brand and agency executives. The 2020 speaker line-up is on the horizon. 

Web Summit

December  2-4, 2020

Streaming under six general themes,  the Web Summit will feature some of the most renowned speakers and companies in areas from software development, medtech, marketing, the future of work and more.

- Talia Firenze, Account Associate

What I’ve Learned From Having a Remote PR Agency Internship

In January, I was excited to report to a sleek, cool office in the heart of NYC's financial district as Kite Hill PR's newest intern. To say I have had a unique internship experience that I never expected to have, would be an understatement. Although I interned with Kite Hill for eight months, only two of those were spent in the actual agency. My "office" soon became my home when I, like the vast majority of the world, transitioned to fully remote status.

There are certain things I learned during my internship, that I believe I only could’ve learned as a result of working remotely.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions

While this may seem like a lesson that is more of a universal truth than a lesson learned while working a remote internship, the importance of asking lots of questions was never more evident to me than while working from home. In virtual communication, via email or Slack or phone calls,it is easy for messages to lose meaning or context. It's ripe for misinterpretation. When someone is not sitting with you, face-to-face, tasks may seem even more confusing.

I learned quickly that working remotely meant that an account manager could not see my face, or see if I was confused. I had to speak up for myself. I had to articulate any confusion or questions I might have had. I became comfortable sending follow up Slacks or emails.  I learned how to over-communicate to make sure I was doing my job to the best of my ability.

Be Proactive 

Being proactive and eager to offer support wherever you can is key to a successful internship because it is, in my opinion, the best way to learn. While working remotely, no one is sitting in the office looking at you and therefore, the fact that you are there to offer support might not always be top-of-mind for everyone. It is very easy for us to get consumed in our own worlds and work and therefore, I recognized that it was up to me to put myself out there and offer my support as much as possible.

I found myself growing more comfortable with sending Slack messages to the account support, or through the wider team channel, asking for tasks in order for me to continue to develop new skills, while sharpening ones I had learned in the classroom, even though I was not in a typical agency setting. 

Go to the Water Coolers and Cocktail Hours

I did not realize how much I enjoyed the atmosphere at Kite Hill until I no longer had it. I missed seeing everyone, and the conversations that occurred in the office throughout the day. Remote work has the tendency to become lonely, and I found myself missing the human interactions I had every day in the office. 

The culture team at Kite Hill organized water coolers, trivia nights and cocktail hours to replicate that office atmosphere we were missing by working remotely and they were some of the most important events I attended during my time interning. Everyone at Kite Hill made me feel like a part of the team and I truly learned the importance of working in an agency that has a strong company culture and the importance of staying connected, even when we are not together.  

Working remotely did not come without its challenges, however, the team at Kite Hill made the transition as seamless as possible. Although I did not anticipate having a remote internship, I learned invaluable lessons from the experience that I feel confident will allow me to excel in my next position, as I join the Kite Hill team as a full time employee!

- Kerriann Becker, Assistant Account Associate and Graduate of St. John’s University

Why ‘Connections’ Are Important Now More Than Ever

The PR, marketing and media industries have changed drastically over the last six months. Professionals working in communications are faced with a number of challenges, the biggest being how can we stay connected when we cannot be together? We have needed to reconsider our connections with society, each other, our colleagues and how we use technology to nurture those new connections and still, there are answers left to be discovered.

We will attempt to answer those questions and put the industry’s biggest issues at the forefront of Communications Week, as we aim to inspire, inform and connect the industry.

Our Founder and CEO, Tiffany Guarnaccia, discusses Communications Week’s theme of “Connections,” which directly recognizes the challenges of changing connections that PR, marketing and media professionals have faced during the course of the year. Read more in PR Daily.