For the last few weeks, our inboxes have been filled with messages from every business we ever visited about their approach to COVID-19. Those consumer-facing messaging are often needed, and brands can’t be silent indefinitely. It’s equally important, if not more so, to invest time and resources in communicating with your employees. Here are a few tried-and-true tactics for ensuring your internal communications efforts are successful during a time that feels uncertain at best. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate.It’s tempting to limit what you share with employees when things are uncertain, and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s impossible to …

The long-awaited National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM) is slated to open in summer of 2020. It will be the only museum dedicated solely to preserving African American music traditions and celebrating the influence black Americans have had on music. Based in Nashville, Tenn., as part of the Fifth + Broadway development, the museum will share the story of the American soundtrack by integrating history and interactive technology to bring musical heroes of the past into the present. African Americans are responsible for the musical legacy of our country, having created more than 50 genres and sub-genres comprising most …

Regardless of whether you’re a small business operating out of your basement or a multimillion-dollar franchise, your brand is the core of your business. It’s how your business is perceived by consumers – meaning, it’s what they think of when they think of you. I’ll explain.  Let’s play a game. I’ll give you a clue, and you tell me what first comes to mind: “Just Do It” Innovation that excites Always low prices. Always. “YOU get a car, and YOU get a car, and YOU get a car!” It comes in a little robin’s egg blue box with a white …

We live in a visual information world. If you doubt it, just take a look at Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. What does that mean for the communications professional? What does it mean for the business person? In both cases, telling a story will mean more than words. You will need to think about graphics, photography or video to make your content stickier. And that visual component needs to advance or illustrate the written word. Generally speaking, graphics are great for making numbers and statistics more approachable, video is perfect for showing how to do something or creating a mood …

July 21, 1969, was a big day for me. It was my 14th birthday, and 14 seemed so much cooler, so much older than 13. I was ready to leave the teen-age apprenticeship year behind and get on with it. I was also heading to Huntsville to play with the Fort Payne, Ala., Little League All-Star team in a regional baseball tournament. I was pumped about making the team, but even more so for the chance to go on a road trip with my buddies that would include a couple of nights in a motel. (It had a pool!) As …