CIO’s Secrets to Successful PR

Be ubiquitous. Make like Frank Purdue and put your name and face on every internal and external communication. Peter Sealey, adjunct professor of marketing at the University of California at Berkeley, says once you start a brand you should promote it with a trademark, logo, color or even a sound.

Make your business case. Use your communications to educate the rest of your company about what IS can do for them. Treat your internal customers just as your company treats its external ones, says John Blanco, vice president of Business Alliance and Strategic Communications, the internal PR unit for Cablevision’s IS department.

Stay on target. Use internal surveys to gauge whether communications are hitting the mark. Keep an eye on the line between effective PR and a gimmick, says Cablevision CIO Tom Dolan.

Say something. “It’s not the flash and sizzle” of communication that will get attention as much as consistent and reliable substance, says Joel Goldhammer, vice president in technology solutions at AT Kearney.

Create value. Joe Seibert, CIO with Viacom, says if you can’t deliver that, all the PR in the world won’t help you.