to ourselves. "Too often we don’t recognize and acknowledge our

own achievements," she points out. Some time very soon, take a

moment, write down all your accomplishments and then write

"Congratulations

— good job!"

When you believe in your product, after all, it is easier to sell

it.

— Bart Jackson

Top Of Page
The Great Stem Cell Debate Comes to Mercer: Nancy Duff

"My task is to make sure people with

different points of view get heard," says Nancy Duff. A

professor of Christian ethics at the Princeton Theological Seminary,

she is speaking of her role as moderator of an upcoming conference.

The event is entitled "Should We Place Limits on Medical

Research?:

A Look at the Stem Cell Debate." Sponsored by the Conference

Center

at Mercer, it takes place on Friday, October 10, at 8:30 a.m. at

MCCC’s

West Windsor campus. Cost: $35. Call 609-586-4800, ext. 3856, for

more information. Among the speakers:

charged topic, about which there is little middle ground. Stem cell

research is controversial in large part because it intersects with

the Right to Life debate.

The stems cells that are thought by most scientists to be most helpful

in medical research are those from embryos. Should embryos be created

solely to aid medical research? Should stem cells be harvested from

aborted embryos for the purpose of medical research? Few people answer

"maybe." Positions on each side tend to be passionate.

Duff lays out the two sides of the argument. "Some people believe

nascent human life has the same status as human life," she says.

"It’s a dilemma because of what stem cell therapy could address

— MS, spinal cord injury, Alzheimers, Parkinsons. Devastating

diseases, absolutely devastating."

The stem cells found in embryos, because they have not yet developed

into specific organs, could potentially be grown to replace damaged

cells in any part of the body.

"It’s so exciting," is how Duff characterizes the promise.

At the same time, troubling issues are raised. Human life, at any

stage, should not be treated callously, she says, declaring, "it’s

a dilemma."

Duff’s life revolves around the examination of moral quandaries. A

Texas native, she grew up in Tyler, a little town in the eastern part

of the state. She attended Austin College in Sherman, Texas, and

graduated

in 1977 with an English degree. She then attended Union Seminary in

Richmond, Virginia, where she was ordained as a Presbyterian minister.

After two years as a campus minister back at Austin College, she moved

to New York City to earn her Ph.D. from the Union Theological

Seminary.

There she met her husband, David Mertz, a Methodist minister, now

serving in Princeton and in Rossmoor.

Duff, meanwhile, had been called to teach ethics at the Princeton

Theological Seminary. "I absolutely love teaching ethics,"

she exclaims. "I’m in the wonderful position of never having to

convince students that what I teach is important."

In her ethics classes, Duff strives to create understanding. Few

issues

make this more difficult than those surrounding stem cell research.

Her students are "all over the place" on the issue. She is

not out to change anyone’s mind, but rather to open minds enough to

see the merit in at least some of the points the other side is making.

"We don’t have to scream at each other," she says. "It’s

frustrating when people can not listen to one another." At the

upcoming conference she is going to ask panelists to identify the

opposing argument they disagree with the most, and then to identify

an argument that really has some merit.

"There’s room to acknowledge that one’s opponent has a valuable

perspective," she says. The all-too-common tendency to reduce

the other side to a caricature is not helpful. "When we do that,

we’re arguing with the weakest argument," she says.

Duff cannot recall a case where a passionately Pro Life or Pro Choice

person ever went over to the other side, but she has seen positive

movement. "I had a student who wrote a paper on abortion,"

she recalls. "It was so mean-spirited, so unfair." When she

gave the student a low grade, he asked for an opportunity to re-write

the paper. The new attempt retained the same arguments, but presented

them without the meanness. Duff raised the grade, and the student

agreed that the change was for the better. "I had no idea I

sounded

like this!" he told her.

His paper, stripped of vitriol, was not only more acceptable, it was

also more persuasive.

Duff doesn’t want to give away her own position on stem cell research,

but she does say that her experience of motherhood has given her

insight

into the issue.

Marrying relatively late in life, in her mid-30s, Duff was not

especially

eager to have children. "We were ambivalent about children,"

she says. While discussing the issue in a desultory — "What

do you think?" — manner, she was surprised to find herself

pregnant. "It came out of the blue!" she says.

At age 38, she gave birth to McKinley, now 14. "It was the best

thing that ever happened to us," she says. "I just shudder

to think we might have missed this." McKinley gained a sibling

two years later when Adam was born.

"My biggest regret is that I would have liked to have a third

child," says Duff. "We did go through the adoption process,

but it fell through." She and her husband had hoped to adopt a

child from China to round out their family, but could not afford the

$20,000 that they were required to put down upfront. "It shouldn’t

be so hard," says Duff.

Bearing and raising children has convinced her that there is a place

for "bringing the language of experience into the moral

debate."

The gradations of feeling a mother has for her unborn child, and then

for her children, belong in the debate, in her opinion. As the

pregnant

mother of a small child, she realized which way she would go on stem

cell research if it could save "the child I rocked to sleep."

Now, as a mother of two growing children, she says there could never

be any choice.

Says Duff, "We’d all walk into the sea together."

Top Of Page
Passionate Workers Boost Productivity: Thomas Damman

In a company of 100 people, it is a good bet that 80

percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the employees. This

breakdown

comes from Thomas Damman, founder of the Cornerstone Group of

consultants. "These are the people whose work is most aligned

with who they are," he says of the 20 percent.

He talks about how to get employees more productive when he speaks

on "How to Connect People with Their Passions" at the Human

Resources Management Association on Monday, October 13, at 5 p.m.

at the Yardley Inn. Cost: $40. Call 973-208-9083.

Damman has zigged and zagged a bit on his way to his ideal work. He

grew up in Michigan, the oldest of 10 children in a family that owns

a chain of hardware stores in the Detroit area. His grandfather, one

of six children, founded the chain. This wealth of potential business

heirs took the pressure off him. Although he, along with his siblings

and cousins, spent some time working in the stores, the family was

not at a loss for the next generation of management. So, when he

announced

that he wanted to be a priest, he found nothing but support.

After attending seminary for high school and for the first two years

of college, Damman decided that the priesthood was not for him after

all. He completed his degree at the University of Michigan, where

he studied psychology. He then joined the Navy, served in Vietnam,

obtained an MBA and a CPA, and signed on as a systems consultant with

Price Waterhouse. After seven years with Price Waterhouse, he worked

for a number of companies, helping them to structure internal audit

groups.

Damman’s overall view of corporate America after serving a 25-year

stint? "There are a lot of unhappy people and ineffective

corporations."

The reason, he says, is twofold. On the one hand, society on many

levels pressures individuals to fit in. This process starts with the

family, where there tends to be an expectation that children will

choose a path similar to that of their parents. Damman’s family, he

says, had a business orientation. That was the life they knew, and

that was the direction in which they pointed their young.

Another family might have an artistic bent. Growing up surrounded

by actors and musicians, a youngster with a yen to tote up numbers

might receive scant support.

The molding process continues in school, where self-fulfillment tends

to take a backseat to achieving high test scores, participating in

sports and activities deemed likely to appeal to admissions officers,

and winning a place in a prestigious college.

By the time most people hit the workforce, says Damman, they don’t

even know what they want to do. What they do discover all too often

is that they are deeply unhappy, and are just marking time in their

jobs. Part of his practice involves uncovering innate abilities and

helping individuals to identify the work they were meant to do. Just

as some insist that there is a soulmate for every person, Damman is

convinced that there is a perfect work match for every person.

"It isn’t what you think you want to do," he says. The match

is not cerebral. It goes deeper than that. "It’s

experiential,"

he continues. "It’s a deep sense of satisfaction. Not mind or

image, but how does it feel." When you are doing work that feels

good, work that you would do without pay if money were not an issue,

you know that you have found the work that is perfect for you. The

criterion of feeling goes against the grain, however. "We’re

taught,"

says Damman, "that if it feels good, it’s not good for you."

In addition to helping individuals peel back the layers of

socialization

that led to poor work matches, Oak Ridge-based Cornerstone Group

(973-208-9083)

advises corporations on forming productive teams. Here are some ways:

approaches,

and the organizational people are respected for their ability to keep

the project on track, there is far more likely to be the kind of

buy-in

that boosts productivity. "On a 10-person team," Damman points

out, "just getting two more people onboard ups productivity 20

percent."

Top Of Page
PR Advice from a Self-Made Pro: Richard Laermer

<D>Richard Laermer’s advice for PR professionals

seeking ties to journalists comes straight from the playground:

"If

you want to make friends," he counsels, "make sure you’re

the one they want to be around."

Laermer, founder of RLM PR (www.rlmpr.com) and author of a number

of books, including Full Frontal PR, expands on this topic — and

on other ways of getting the client’s word out — when he speaks

on "Power Tools for Building Buzz" on Tuesday, October 14,

at 11 a.m. at a meeting of NJ CAMA at the Doral Forrestal. Cost: $45.

Call 609-397-3737 for more information.

Laermer built his own buzz early. As a student at Pace University

(Class of 1980), he looked around and saw that no one was writing

about New York City below 13th Street. He filled the gap with a column

he describes as "very funny, no b.s., a lightweight thing about

downtown." The column was picked up by a number of publications,

including SoHo News, New York Arts Weekly, and the Washington Market

Review.

He had learned a valuable lesson very early in his career: Editors,

like businesspeople of all stripes, are inundated with requests, and

tend to go with a known quantity. "I got a reputation," he

says. "It started me on a freelance career. Editors knew me."

Assignments from the likes of Rolling Stone and Editor & Publisher

followed. Steady work for the Daily News, mostly writing "funny

arts pieces," followed.

Laermer, who has written a book called trendSpotting, says his next

experience in journalism was especially important to his career. He

was in on the start-up of USA Today. Running around New York, covering

everything from Broadway openings to radon scares, he learned to

identify

trends.

Using his knowledge of New York, Laermer wrote Native’s Guide to New

York: Advice with Attitude for People Who Live Here and Visitors We

Like. The book, in turn, gave him an education. "On the first

book tour," he recounts, "I learned about good PR."

People,

of course, are divided into two species, those who love New York,

and those who hate New York. Tapping into the passion, he was able

to get both types to comment on his book, building up its buzz.

Laermer added to his knowledge of how business works when he accepted

a job as public affairs director of the Columbia Business School.

"I became super-informed," he says. "I could meet every

journalist, every PR person, any entrepreneur; I could call up the

president of Harvard. I used the position to become better informed

as a businessperson."

He ticks off the two lessons he learned as an employee of one of the

country’s premier business schools: "Number one, nobody works

very hard in academia, and number two, entrepreneurs all over the

country need help with their images."

Sharpening his antennae at every turn, Laermer was ready to start

his own business. RLM PR burst from the gate in 1991, just as the

world’s first Internet companies were starting to toddle around. The

new company, with a specialty in identifying emerging trends, quickly

pulled in business from dot-com trend setters, including Kozmo.com,

HBO.com, SonicNet, Rare Medium, the FeedRoom, Bolt, and LowerMyBills.

Of course, many of these venture capital rich ventures are no longer

around. Laermer dismisses this happenstance as inconsequential to

his agency’s prospects. For one thing, any number of media companies

went down in the crash, reducing competition. "Most of the PR

firms are out of business, thank God," he says. And before the

bubble burst, he had already begun to focus on healthcare as an

image-challenged

industry. "In the late-’90s and early 2000s, we saw that a lot

of healthcare PR agencies weren’t handling healthcare as though it

is interesting," he says. RLM PR moved into the breach.

As an example, it took on Allergan’s Alocril, a prescription medicine

for the relief of eye allergy symptoms, and turned a potentially

boring

product into a boon for golfers. After attracting coverage in Golf,

Golf Digest, Fairways, T & L Golf, and Golf for Women, RLM PR is

working

on other lifestyle niches for the product.

In a breathtaking trend-spotting feat, Laermer, a lifetime New Yorker

who got his start singing the city’s praises, has opened a California

office to supplement his New York and Washington, D.C., offices. Not

only that, but, speaking from the Left Coast, he sounds totally

besotted

by the Cali lifestyle. His new orientation comes as critics are

remarking

that New York’s number one cinema poet, Woody Allen, has begun to

turn toward the sun, advising the hero in his new movie to seek his

fortune in Los Angeles.

"People have been making fun of me all year," says Laermer.

"They’ve been making fun of L.A., but now Woody Allen’s telling

his character to go to L.A." Los Angles, trend-spotter Laermer

declares, is "a lot happier than New York." And no, he says,

it wasn’t 9/11/2001 that plunged Gotham into gloom. "The year

before was tough," he says. "It was the burning off of

greed."

The stock market plunge, in his opinion, "made 2001 an evil

year."

People, he says, "were in a really bad mood."

"I started coming here more," he says during a phone interview

from his 310 area code. "If you’re in a bad mood, the weather

makes it go away. Some cliches are true." Moving a few steps ahead

of Woody Allen, Laermer is in the process of building a house in the

desert outside of Los Angeles where, he says, sounding absolutely

blissful, "it’s always warm and beautiful."

Savvy PR strategies have gotten Laermer to a position where multiple

residences are an option. He shares them in his new book Full Frontal

PR (Bloomberg Press). Here is a sample from the "Thou Shalt Not

Lie — And 27 Other Media Relations Do or Die Commandments"

section:

a gift thanking the reporter. Your intentions may be perfectly

honorable, but once again, a gift is problematic for a journalist.

All you’re doing is putting her ethics up for debate, because if she

ever chooses to cover you in the future, a case can be made that you

endeared your way in.

Send a handwritten note expressing what a pleasure it was to work

with her.

getting media coverage if you’re the one with the connections.

What your higher-up thinks is a friend usually is someone he talked

to at a cocktail party.

Time and time again, a client has beseeched us not to talk to a

reporter

because she, thinking she had an "in" with the reporter, was

going to handle it herself. And every single time, either we’ve had

to step in to clean up the mess, or the reporter, with whom we’ve

had a longstanding relationship, has called us to say `Why is this

person bugging me?’

to disclose. Entrepreneurs, inventors, and generic know-it-alls

always seem to be in a very unhealthy form of `stealth mode,’

tediously

toiling away on their next big idea in a locked lab guarded by

nondisclosure

agreements. But, of course, they want to be famous, too.

The first thing to remember is that no matter what you’re doing,

provided

it isn’t curing cancer or AIDS, someone else is doing something more

important.

If the media wants to know about it (because you called them,

remember?),

then give them the full story. Never solicit coverage and then give

only half the news. It’s pretentious and off-putting.

question. Just don’t. No comment is a product of Hollywood. It’s

an incriminating answer. By not commenting, you’re saying a whole

lot.

If she asks you a question on a subject you can’t talk about, such

as a legal or Securities and Exchange Commission issue, tell her so.

Acting coy is not a good idea here.

story.

Always read and watch the news if you’re trying to be a part of it.

There’s always a bigger trend to keep an eye on, and maybe your small

business or big idea is relevant to the conversation. That’s your

`in’! Jump on it, make the calls, and become part of the news.

idea.

Remember what Gloria Swanson said in Sunset Boulevard: `It’s the

pictures

that got small!" Day in and day out, our clients say they don’t want

to waste their time speaking with Wireless Review, Call Center

magazine,

or atNewYork.com because they’re too small or no one reads them.

Press begets press, darn it, and if you turn coverage down, you’ve

set yourself up to fail. The big secret is that most journalists read

the small news outlets like atNewYork.com to find great stories

before they hit the mainstream. Do you think they dream up all those

great stories on their very own?

off-color

joke, don’t. Even if you think that somehow it will ingratiate

you with the host or hostess, don’t. Particularly if it’s about

another

guest, no matter how light-hearted it is, just don’t. You’ll never

get asked back. Other producers who are watching will scratch you

off their lists, too.

we decided to add one more commandment, the one that truly counts:

Don’t say no to all these ixnays. They are time-tested and worth

paying

attention to. Use and obey!

Corrections or additions?

— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.