Computer School Startup Lesson
Corrections or additions?
This article by Barbara Fox was prepared for the June 18, 2003 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Ways to Leverage A Start-Up’s PR
D‘Anne Hotchkiss, owner of a new public relations
agency named Ellsworth Kaye, found out she liked to do PR at her first
job after college, when she worked on a weekly paper in a suburb of
Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Her job was to write feature profiles on the townspeople.
“In a small town,” she says, “everybody already knew the
things people didn’t want them to know. The feature writer got to
tell what people did want known. Which is the essence of public relations.”
Hotchkiss grew up in Cedar Rapids, where her father worked for Collins
Radio, makers of communications equipment. She graduated in 1980 with
a journalism and mass communications major from the University of
Iowa and worked at a PR and advertising agency in Cedar Rapids before
starting her own agency in 1983. When she and her husband, an instrumental
music teacher, moved east in 2000, she went to work for a technology-oriented
agency. “The tech implosion closed their doors in 2001, and I
went back into business for myself,” says Hotchkiss.
The practice of public relations in New York is not as strategy driven
as it is in Iowa, she claims. “Here they tend to focus on what
they can do — talk, write, and get media exposure. Where I come
from, we start with what people need to know about your company, and
then how do we communicate that.”
Take I-Chen Mei, the friend with whom she swapped services (see
story above). Mei understood exactly what her value was — training
— and that this is a good time to do it, but more important than
a press release she needed to establish certain business connections,
so Hotchkiss went with her to some meetings.
Hotchkiss’s other technology and business services clients include
a human capital management company, a technology analyst firm, and
a gold mining operation on the west coast (Ellsworth Kaye Inc., 36
Pierson Avenue, Princeton 08540. 609-987-1013 (877-HITEC-PR). E-mail:
Working with small businesses can be a challenge, says Hotchkiss.
“Sometimes clients think they don’t have competitors. But if nobody
else is in your business, why not? Have others tried to do it and
failed?” She has these suggestions for entrepreneurs.
Recognize your corporate reputation is an important partof your corporate worth. Use public relations to build it and protectit.Require your public relations counselor to have a thoroughunderstanding of business, not just of public relations.Demand strategic thinking. Ask why and how, not just what,when evaluating public relations recommendations.Expect your PR practitioner to look at your business, itsproducts and its services, through the eyes of customers, vendors,employees and the media. “Entrepreneurs think everyone shouldbe excited about the same thing that they are excited about. Theyhave to take a step back and look at the value of what they are doingthrough the eyes of the customer.”Consider your public relations counselor a trusted advisor,like the company accountant or attorney.Don’t confuse advertising with public relations. If youwant full control over what’s said about you or your company, buyan ad.Don’t limit your public relations activities to news releasesor newsletters. They are two of the least effective means of buildingyour business.Don’t think PR can “spin” your company to greatsuccess. No one is fooled by grandiose claims for very long. Got aproblem with a product or service? Fix the problem by changing companyactions, then use public relations to communicate the changes.Don’t measure the value of public relations by increasedsales. Selling belongs to the sales team, not the communicationsteam.Don’t hide information from your public relations counselor.She can’t give you sound advice if she doesn’t know all the facts.Hotchkiss found her “straight talk and speak your mind”approach played much better in Manhattan than it did in Iowa. Thatapproach is key to her business. “One client said I had the bestbullshit detector of anybody in the business,” says Hotchkiss.”If clients pontificate about how great they are, I stop themin their tracks. If all they want to do is tell me how good they are,they need to find someone else. I don’t need them to tell me my job.My job is to communicate what is newsworthy about them to the peoplewho need to hear it. Sometimes things that people need to know arepainful to talk about or less than perfect. But if everything is perfect,it’s not believable.”— Barbara FoxTop Of PageComputer School Startup LessonI-Chen Mei tells the quintessential story how helpingsomeone else can prove helpful to yourself. She and a church friend,D’Anne Hotchkiss, were working side by side at a Habitat for Humanityproject. Hotchkiss was in the process of setting up her own PR business,Ellsworth Kaye Inc.”I was helping D’Anne volunteer when she told me she had a computerproblem,” says Mei. “I said I could help her set up her localarea network and that I was starting a computer school — couldshe help me?” Hotchkiss obliged by doing Mei’s public relationsmaterials and helping her establish some business relations. “Shehas been a great resource,” says Mei.Mei is setting up her school, ICM IT Consulting and Training, to teachcorporate training classes, job-seekers, and those who want to changeor advance in their careers. She offers day, evening, and weekendclasses in computer software development and programming at locationsin Princeton and Philadelphia (ICM IT Consulting and Training, 55Marion East, Princeton 08540, 609-252-1703; fax, 609-252-1703, www.icmit.net).These classes, which she says can count towards a bachelor of sciencedegree at Drexel, include test preparation for certification by suchcompanies as Sun, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, and others. Among thecourses are data warehousing, data modeling, network management, programming,systems, security, relational database technology, eBusiness, webdevelopment, and application server development, as well as OLAP andAd-Hoc reporting technology. Placement assistance is available forsome of the programs. Mei has applied for approval as a private vocationalschool, which would enable participants to take her classes underthe New Jersey Workforce Development Program.”Teaching was something I always thought was fun,” says Mei,whose mother was a teacher in Taiwan. “Students would come toour house and help with the housework and I saw that they gave hergreat respect. I didn’t become a full-time teacher because I wantedthe challenge of the computer industry, but I always did teachinganytime I could. I thought, why not start my own school and give myselfteaching time?”Mei went to Tunghai University, earned her master’s degree in computerscience from Central Michigan University, and worked at Citibank onWall Street. She was a member of the technical staff at Bell Labsfrom 1984 to 1992, then became a consultant and taught at Drexel andRutgers, where she established the Microsoft Academic Authorized TrainingProgram (AATP) at Rutgers University Internet Institution (ITI). “Rutgersoutsourced to my firm, and I set up the program and the classroomand hired the instructors, including myself,” says Mei. Her husband,WeiChi Chen, is a senior architect at the Hillier Group, and theyhave three school-aged children.Known for her technical skills and ability to communicate in clearand practical ways, Mei has published two papers and has a designpatent for a computer product. “I enjoy teaching and wanted togive myself the opportunity to help people be successful in theircareers,” she says. “So I have obtained the best instructors.I want people to know they can come to my school and gain satisfaction.”The faculty members have graduate degrees in computer science andrelated fields from such leading universities as Stanford and Harvard.Executives from various business disciplines will advise studentsin strategic planning, finance, human resources, career counseling,and marketing.”I would like to run the school as if it were a non-profit andreinvest the profit into the school,” says Mei. “I want toprovide the best education and learning opportunity I can to our communitiesand industry professionals.”Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
