By Laura Merritt, AOE Special Projects Manager Communications professionals have long recognized the value of traditional paid and earned media in marketing and public relations strategies. Yet, many of us have underestimated the power of owned media.Owned media is all the content your organization is responsible for creating and maintaining. This primarily includes your website where original content like articles, white papers, employee and customer stories and more are found. In add...

Launched in conjunction with the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Foundation, AOE has announced the establishment of The Advancing Organizational Excellence Fellowship.The AOE Fellowship honors Wendy O. Ward, a member of the AOE team for more than 10 years. She passed away at the early age of 32 from breast cancer. During her career, she was known throughout the concrete industry as a leading expert in helping organizations with their marketing and sales efforts. Ward wrote a column on those to...

If your company is an AIA Continuing Education Provider, 2020 has ushered in some updates you need to know about.Many product manufacturers and other companies/organizations benefit from developing courses in their area of expertise and having those courses qualified by the AIA to provide continuing education credits to architects. On-demand courses, typically hosted on the web, are particularly popular.As of January 1, 2019, the AIA published a new resource for education providers. Titled &ldqu...

By Jeffrey Coleman, The Coleman Law FirmAll contractors are required to have (and should have) a “Commercial General Liability Insurance Policy” otherwise known as a “GL Policy.” This policy generally covers the liability of contractors for accidents and resulting damage to persons or property. A comprehensive analysis of this policy is far beyond the scope of this article. In fact, a separate article could be written about almost each sentence of the GL Policy. There are...

By Laura Merritt, AOE Special Projects ManagerAs we head into summer, COVID-19 continues to impact our daily lives. Businesses and communities are learning to adapt to the “new normal.” But even as we collectively rise to the challenges the pandemic has wrought, our new normal continues to evolve. We have entered a new phase in the COVID-19 narrative.As more states ease restrictions, people are venturing out of their homes and businesses are opening their doors again. Yet the re...

By Laura Merritt, AOE Special Projects ManagerLast month, President Trump, citing a perceived censorship of conservative viewpoints, signed an executive order which looks to shake up how social media is regulated. The regulation of social media platforms has long been debated but this order, coupled with the President’s related tweet, has pushed the subject into the spotlight. At the heart of the matter lies a largely unknown section of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) known as section...

One of the most common questions we have received during the last few months has been how to handle marketing and sales efforts during the pandemic. What is appropriate? Although there is no guidebook and instruction on the right answer to that question, there are countless examples of some really great ways to pivot your marketing efforts so you can continue reaching your target audiences appropriately and effectively. In our opinion, Coldspring, a valued client since 2006, has done an ama...

The word Strategy came into use in the English language in the early 1800s. It was derived from another English word “Stratagem” that has been in use from late 15th century. The words trace their roots to the Greek, Stratos 'army' + agein 'to lead’.Strategic planning makes many people groan and roll their eyes even in the best of times. According to the Association for Strategic Planning, strategic planning is the process used to formul...

In an effort to share crisis communications tips during this pandemic, AOE sat down with Whitney Belkowitz, President and CEO of Intelligent Concrete, LLC, to learn about their approach to communicating related to COVID-19.  Intelligent Concrete, LLC is an international company that provides research, development, testing and consulting services for the concrete and construction industry.  She shared that one of her passions is helping to bring new and emerging technologies to market.Q...

A recent study by the Zeno Group indicates that one of the many things that has changed during the COVID-19 era is our values. Specifically, for the first time since the Great Depression era, Americans have shifted from materialism to frugality, and away from self-centered ambition toward duty. The research shows that the values rising most in importance today are those associated with family, interpersonal relationships, self-sufficiency, honesty, thrift and duty. This shift may not come a...