Advertising executive Astra Da Costa was my mentor and I didn't even know it.

 At least not until I got the call at 7 pm last Thursday to say that she had passed away, a casualty of the pulmonary fibrosis.

 I was shocked. Many were. If there was one person who always seemed almost invincible it was Astra. Tall. Robust. No-nonsene. Astra was (and please forgive the cliché) larger than life. "She hated bull shit," one person tweeted as the news spread on the social networks. What I recall most though is that she always came to the table prepared and demanded that those who faced her be the same way.

 I remember distinctly a conversation with her when I invited her to sit on a panel alongside other ad executives to address an IABC TT gathering. I think that it's telling that despite a very tight travel schedule, she agreed to be part of the head table because privately she recognised that 'she'd be the only black female'.  This had nothing to do with race and  everything to do with pride of place.

 For sure, Astra helped to shape public relations in Trinidad and Tobago and her counsel to many senior leaders at BPTT, TCL, CLICO and the Government was regarded as best in class. For many years the agency Astra founded, Ample, was regarded as the competitor to be feared in any agency bid and along with her partner Alfred Aguiton, she staffed her agency with outstanding professionals committed to the same high standards as her own, including her sister, Adonna Da Costa Headley. 

 At a Divali dinner last Saturday evening TCL's marketing manager commented on her professionalism: "Many executives wanted to deal only with Astra, her level of confidentiality was remarkable."

Don’t get me wrong with the praises. Astra was not soft. 

On the contrary, and perhaps it was just because she pounded on so many doors in the early days, I found her exterior to be  somewhat turtle like, almost formidable. In her capacity as Queen's Hall Chairman I worked closely with her, writing her speeches, presenting campaigns and  managing events. I was surprised one day when in a meeting with the Queen's Hall Board discussing their 50th. Anniversary celebrations that Astra talked excitedly on her Iphone to relatives at the hospital asking if her niece had been born.  It was the first time I had seen her so animated and she was startled when I inquired about her newborn niece some weeks later. It was as if she was surprised that she had let her armour down.  

In a documentary interview just a few weeks ago before her death, she was even more animated when I asked about her love for the performance arts. She talked about her father, her deep love for the performance arts came from him. I could tell then and there that the care her father had for his children was the base for Astra’s work ethic and reputation, which seemed to be forged over a lifetime of effort, excellence and trusted relationships.

Last Friday, I searched my quote book for an appropriate phrases for a Queen's Hall memorial ad that would surmise 63 years of excellence, I stumbled across this from Robin Frost's famed poem, "The Road Less Travelled." 

" Two roads diverged in a wood

And I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.”

 No words describe Astra Da Costa’s work in PR more. With her passing an entire library of PR knowledge has gone up in flames.

On behalf of all the communicators and marketers in Trinidad and Tobago, thank you Astra. Now go on. Rest in peace.

Today’s picture at the back page of the Newsday is almost surreal. 

In it photographer, Sureash Cholai, captures a shot of the Trinidad and Tobago Under-17 football team being taken from the airport yesterday on a bus driven by a man wearing a mask. 

The team had just arrived from Mexico City, the country where the most deaths (150) from swine flu have now been recorded.  

The photo is also telling. A swine flu outbreak in Mexico is just too close to comfort. Mexico is our hemispheric  neighbour.  In China, bird flu had seemed a world away. And as the security guard at our office told me: “ Wasn’t Mexico well represented at the Fifth Summit of the Americas recently, did they not have scores of journalists, protocol people,  and their President here? It’s just matter of time,” he reasoned.

To their credit both Minister of Health and his new corporate communications manager, Dr. Theomary Karamanis, have tried to ease the concerns of the public by holding a series of information based  interviews and ramping up the number of notices on their site.

But with US Federal health officials warnings that  the virus would probably claim lives in the US and the World Health Organisation yesterday calling on all governments to prepare for a swine flu pandemic, it  would be remiss, dare I say, even unprofessional for any business  communicator or PR manager not to be super concerned about a possible outbreak here at home and by extension, in their own organisations.

In Trinidad, I have seen two responses on the corporate communications side. The Engaged. And the Dismissive.

 At Guardian Holdings for instance their corporate communications manager, Maria  Mc Millan, began distributing e-news flashes and updates with pertinent crisp  fact about swine flu. These were distributed to senior leaders, her communications group and other stakeholders. 

At another organisation on Tuesday where I was giving a lecture, I asked the PR team how they were communicating  swine flu; I was met with vacant stares. “No one’s really talking about it,” the  senior communicator said. 

I bet that communicator is dead wrong. 

For sure, her response points to a disconnect between the  corporate communications department who thinks that its goal is to focus on communicating the business of its business as opposed to news  with which employees can really engage.

There is a lot that PR can do in both large and small organisations. 

We can be advisors to our CEOs and clients by becoming more  informed about swine flu. For sure, if  policy is going to be predicated upon  advice and counsel, then we should be reading as much as we can about the disease, verifying facts from credible  sources so that we can   offer the right advice to our leadership teams and customers. For instance, knowing the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic should be part of our vocabulary so we’re sure we are not  creating  unnecessary panic.

Simple things like cross linking to the World Health Organsation’s website and even www.health.gov.tt is practical and makes good sense. Sharing basic information about the simple things that employees can do to contain the spread of germs in their offices can also be placed on the corporate Intranet. It may also be a good time to form a communications working group with links to the IT department because this is certainly shaping up to be a business continutiy issue. Companies may need to prepare for  work-at-home environments, in the event that people stay away from work  because of a number of scenarios like  getting a common cold. 

For PR folks, panicking or even worse, being disengaged  can never be an acceptable substitute "for forethought, contingency planning or actually taking productive action," says marketing expert Seth Godin.

The  photo of the masked  driver on the bus taking the teenaged footballers for their medical tests  proves that.

IABC Trinidad and Tobago hosted Senator Helen Drayton (a corporate communicator with over 25 years of marketing and HR experience) this morning at Satchmos',  the Woodbrook based jazz bar.  It was wonderful to hear a genuinely knowledgeable and articulate  voice on the  the topic of social investment  in the current  economic climate. Drayton lauded  CLICO, Republic Bank and Guardian Life for their  social investment programmes. She maintained that  now more than ever  was the time for CSR programmes  to be viewed as more than just appendages.

It was a point well made. NGOs force us to think differently about our involvement in community. Traditional advertising-agency controlled marketing models no longer work. Ads are increasingly ignored. CSR programmes on well-built PR platforms therefore stand poised to  create the runway of credibility  for brands to soar. 

This cannot occur in a vaccum. Drayton added some key metrics were necessary for it to work:

•  
• Make sure CSR values are integrated into the corporate vision 
• Ensure your programmes are CEO sponsored-have your CEO buy into it up front
• Have clear goals; make sure they are long-term 
• Look at employee engagement in the CSR programmes tie it into performance evaluation
• Measure. Measure. Get data to demonstrate the ROI of the programmes
• Make sure your CSR goals are linked to corporate business goals

Presentations. They can make you quake at your feet.

What I've learned over the years is that you've got to be ultra prepared. This morning the Mango Media Caribbean team delivered a 'wow' presentation. From the start, we knew we were going to shine. How?

We were super excited during the preparation phase. Our creative director said she couldn't wait to share the big ideas. I too, felt that today would be different and it was. 

We did the thorough research so our insights were strong; we thought it might give us a competitive edge. Also for the first time we gave our PR presentation a theme, something we had never done before. Usually we reserve that for the advertising campaign but because the PR dimensions involved creating an engagement programme for a group of very passionate stakeholders, we felt our campaign deserved a line that focused on bridging the communications gap. We also treated the presentation as a show. A time to dazzle. 

But what really made us stand out today was our PowerPoint presentation. We discarded the heap of bullet points and text.  We cut the long sentences. And we built our presentation around compelling images, big pictures with even bigger type, strong quotations and single points.  The other thing that we did differently was that we kept our presentation to fifteen minutes. We weren't a single second longer.

 We have no idea yet how we did, but win or lose, we soared. I figure that's why we were singing in the car on the way back to the office.

Caption: Dancers perform as they depict Mc Farlane's Africa

“The fact that award winning mas maker Brian Mc Farlane’s Africa landed on the covers of every front page newspaper last Sunday was no accident. 

Mc Farlane  had agonised about whether  his proposed launch at 5:30 am would mean a media no show. He was  also concerned about what day of the week would be  suitable to host his p

In a series of meetings I advised that since the media thrives on the freshness of news, the fact that his launch was a press event only; that the media would be shuttled to a secret location and that the pitch letters conveyed a sense of excitement were huge plusses. 

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Caption: Role model speaker, Anna Maria Garcia Brooks

I was talking to some senior managers over at Republic Bank about conducting some speech writing training modules for their editorial team. I mentioned that I found their general manager, Anna Maria Garcia Brooks, a role model of a speaker. It is not only because Brooks has an excellent command of the podium but because she knows that the best way to connect with the audience is through storytelling.

I know only of a handful of executives who do this. Instead, at the lectern, they present a laundry list of facts and data delivered in isolation or they look at the data/text on their power point presentation and have the audacity to read word for word. How boring!

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I compiled a list of do's and don'ts after my media training session with the front line staff of an oil and gas company. Remember these folks are basically junior administrators and are not authorised to speak to the media but they do act as gatekeepers and often don't know what to say when the media comes a calling.

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