About

Glad to meet you. I’m Ellie Becker. Having been in the PR profession full time for twenty+ years I’ve learned a great deal about communicating on behalf of clients. Now I’m going to take a stab at communicating about the evolution of PR and marketing — from my experience, from my ongoing learning and from my heart.

In the past couple of years, much of how we’ve achieved results for clients in the past has gone out the window opened by the Internet, online media and interactive communications. In fact, even some of the objectives have changed. This is both daunting and enormously exciting.

It’s fun being a student again and learning about the new tools that will serve my clients well in the future. It’s rewarding to collaborate with peers to figure out the new ways of doing things. And it’s reassuring to recognize how much of PR practice is still valid.

We PR folk are all about content and story telling — two core areas of online communications. Of course, solid strategic thinking works in any format and is invaluable to success. And creativity is more important than ever in a world of highly fragmented media, diverse, targeted audiences and tight budgets.

To reminisce about getting here… The first writing I was paid for I accomplished on a manual Underwood using six sheets of onion skin paper and five of carbon paper inserted in-between. I realize that this is sanskrit to many of you, but if you’d like a translation, email me and I’ll fill you in — ellie@erbeckercompany.com. The project was to craft three-minute scripts for syndicated radio shows featuring early health food guru Adelle Davis, gourmet genius James Beard and America’s 1960s sweetheart Arlene Frances. Thank god age is just a number!!! ;-}

I also worked behind the scenes on incredible special projects for Fortune 100 companies — including the pioneering women’s golf tournament, the Colgate Dinah Shore  under the leadership and mentorship of John R. Walsh – an unsung PR giant. I’ll be posting a lot about what I learned from him that’s still fresh today.

After a second 13-year career in residential and commercial real estate that ended in the last great crash of our lifetimes in the late 80’s, I re-donned the PR mantle and founded my own consultancy, E.R. Becker Company, Inc., helping entrepreneurs, smaller businesses and non-profits with their communications and media relations. That venture has now evolved into my current inbound marketing agency. Find out more at www.erbeckercompany.com.

For the past 13 years I’ve been partners in a small PR agency that has gotten great visibility for incredible companies — some brand new, some into several venture rounds, some established, growing and in need of greater recognition. They work in a variety of industries — healthcare, medical products, elder care, technology, real estate, manufacturing, nonprofit — and each client in its own way contributes something of significance in the world. We were fortunate to be able to structure our business to focus on organizations of that caliber.

Now in order to continue to bring value and recognition to terrific businesses, I have determined that their credibility can come from new sources — in addition to the third party credibility of media coverage that has been the hallmark of public relations practice.

It’s my hope that in blogging I can shine new light on the simplest definition of public relations I’ve ever heard — relationships with your publics. And that means more than just the media. The Web is a perfect place for engaging with all stakeholders in more productive ways than ever! And I’m really happy to be here!

By the way…I hope you enjoy the musical element of my blog. Music always inspires me — especially jazz. So each time I blog, I’m going to listen to one of the 2000+ CD’s in my collection and use the opportunity to upload the CD to an ipod — a long-delayed project. I’ll select my favorite tune from each CD and share it with you at the top of the post, so you can read to great background music. I also intend to draw metaphors and connections to life and business from the music/art form and share those with you as well. Hopefully some of the posts will be as entertaining as the music, but it’s ok if you just want to check in to hear great old and new classics from America’s music — and the finest musicians playing them.

They oughta keep me going for awhile in the inspiration department.