Katie Rasoul loves working with leaders. She believes awesome leaders build awesome teams. And that making leaders a little more effective will have a positive impact on people and businesses. After several years in HR and talent development leadership roles in the Milwaukee area, Rasoul decided to strike out on her own and launch her own company, Team Awesome Coaching. Her goal: to focus her energy on what she’s most passionate about – helping leaders grow and hone their ability to apply a lense of humanity and belonging to the decisions they make. For Rasoul, it’s not so much about the goals employers pursue, but rather how they do it. In her view, leaders always need to keep in mind the people who work for them.

The coronavirus pandemic has created a new set of challenges for leaders who face growing responsibilities of supporting the safety of staff, protecting the reputation of the company, and shoring up the viability of operations.

COVID-19 is first and foremost a human and public health tragedy. As the likelihood of prolonged social-distancing measures increases in Wisconsin, across the U.S., and around the world, the virus could have a significant impact on business and on the economy.

With Wisconsin governor Tony Evers issuing a “Safer at Home” order, business leaders from all over the Milwaukee region continue to learn as they go when it comes to running their businesses.

There is no rule book for what we are experiencing right now in Milwaukee and around the world. The coronavirus pandemic and the rapid spread of the disease caused by the virus, COVID-19 are unprecedented.

As a former journalist, one of the questions I’m asked most often is, “Do you miss reporting?” More specifically, I’m often asked if I miss writing about interesting people, places and organizations.

As an entrepreneur and mom of four, I can hardly remember a day that I didn’t reflect on this statement. Hiring my first employee, signing our first office lease, teaching my boys how to drive. Throughout our lives, we encounter countless situations that make us feel unprepared, insecure, even scared. How do we confront these emotions? How do we work through them to discover what’s on the other side? How do we not retreat to what we’ve always known? It takes courage.

You have a great idea for a story. It meets a key business goal for your company or your client. It’s newsworthy. It’s visual. You can provide access and interviews. You have the perfect media target. So you pick up the phone to make your pitch to a reporter.

Links to Kane Communications Group web content as featured on Instagram can be found here.

Speaking to the media can be nerve-wracking. Whether it’s your first interview with a Milwaukee news outlet or your fifteenth with national media, preparation is key to your success. When serving as the media spokesperson for your organization, you are asked to represent your company, its values, its brand and the subject matter at hand. That’s a lot to remember even if it’s your own company or it’s your field of expertise. To stay on message, you can never over-prepare. As Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Millions of people in the United States are affected by mental illness – whether dealing with their own health or that of a loved one. In spite of the statistics, a great deal of stigma still exists when it comes to behavioral health. Communication is a powerful tool that can be used to break this stigma.

Everyone wants to feel special! Personalizing communication to a specific audience member’s interests and preferences makes them feel important. The more connected people feel to your business and organization, the more engaged they’ll be, and the more likely they’ll support you for years to come!

For the first time, Kane Communications Group leaders were invited to present at the Public Relations Society of America’s 2019 International Conference (ICON) in San Diego which was held October 20-22. PRSA ICON brings together more than 3,000 public relations and communications professionals and students from around the world to share information, strategies and trends impacting the industry. It was nearly a week filled with inspiring presentations, learning about new trends and being immersed in the world of communications.

Good stories are all around. You just have to look, listen and ask the right questions.

As communications consultants, we constantly search for stories to help share our clients’ messages and demonstrate their impact. Many of our clients are in the health and human services sector. The work they do has a tremendous impact on the community and individuals alike, changing people’s lives every single day.

When I Ieft my career as a journalist, I didn’t take the traditional route into PR and marketing. I joined a start-up executive search firm and spent five years as a recruiter. This meant I worked with C-suite leaders and hiring managers to understand their business goals and help them find amazing talent, whether they needed one key employee or a full team.

When a project has lots of moving parts, it can be hard to keep team members on track. That’s why project management plays such an important role in the Kane Communications Group process. It’s a key part of any project’s success.

As a communications professional (or any other professional for that matter) in a diverse world, it is critically important to understand whom you are serving with your communications efforts. Just as each individual and organization has their own culture, segments of our population have values, beliefs and traditions to which they ascribe.

Just about every organizational leader recognizes the need to use social media and online content to create awareness, build engagement, establish reputation and enhance public relations. But how do you actually monitor these results? Social listening can be an effective tool to learn about the latest developments impacting your brand. Your public relations team can use social listening to react faster, respond better and elevate your business outcomes.

People close to me know I like to tell stories. Get a couple of drinks in me and I’ll regale you with the tale of the Canadian Boys Banned (not a typo – a friend and I actually got kicked out of Canada in 1992), or The Legend of Davida the Cat Lady (not for the faint of heart, I assure you). Someday, when I’m desperate for blog post topics, I’ll treat you to some of these gems.

For generations, organizations made decisions based on operations, sales, and financials with little thought to how audiences need to receive the message.