“Jeff Who Lives at Home” is the sort of little movie you expect to grow on you.
Instead, it grows away from you, losing its grip in a mildly ingratiating manner.
Nonetheless, it does lose its grip. And its audience.
Posts
Posted inPublic Relations, Thought Leader
Penn State’s ongoing battle with crisis communication
Last fall when news broke of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, the entire nation wondered how Penn State would handle the crisis. The child abuse fiasco is a public relations disaster that Penn State will surely be dealing with for years and years to come. So, what should Penn State do? The day after Sandusky was […]
Posted inDavid Pendered
Deborah Scott, Atlanta community advocate, honored by White House
Deborah Scott, executive director of Georgia Stand Up, has been named a White House Champion of Change for her efforts to promote economic equity and environmental stewardship in Atlanta.
Scott’s citation on the White House page says she was named “for her innovative energy priorities and sustainable living practices making a greener community a possibility in any American city or town.”
Most recently, Scott has been in the spotlight for her work in organizing a community development plan regarding Fort McPherson. The award-winning plan aims to ensure that the entire community surrounding the fort benefit from its conversion from military to civilian use.
Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro
Column: Joe Bankoff, retiring CEO of Woodruff Arts Center, joining Tech
By Maria Saporta
Friday, April 20, 2012
Joe Bankoff is about to start another career — this time in academia.
Bankoff, who has be president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center since September 2006, already had announced that he would be retiring from that role at the end of May.
Posted inPublic Relations, Thought Leader, Uncategorized
Inside Atlanta PR
Sharon Goldmacher might be the only person who can solve this winning PR formula: C21 + 2013 = Final Four When Sharon Goldmacher of communications 21 was trying to decide where to start her career, she had a bit of a Goldilocks experience: New Orleans was too hot and the Baltimore/D.C. area was too cold. […]
Posted inHome Mortgages, Thought Leader
The Value of Industry Partnerships
Every month a few members of the Client Relationship Management team from Southeast Mortgage pack up their professional photography equipment and head to Alpharetta where they host a social for Realtors and take new headshot portraits of anyone who wants one. The events have been very well received, as the Realtors and real estate agents […]
Posted inDesign, Design and Our City, Thought Leader, Thought Leadership, Uncategorized
Avoiding Toxic Material in a Sustainable Building
In this new video series, Paula Vaughan, Co-Director Sustainability for Perkins+Will, showcases some of the sustainable features of the new Perkins+Will office in Atlanta. Located at 1315 Peachtree Street, the office recently received LEED Platinum status with a perfect score of 95. It is the current record holder for a LEED Platinum project in North America […]
Posted inLatest News
U.S. Senators Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson hope their “gang” will have 60 members by year end
By Maria Saporta
Could the Gang of Six become the Gang of Sixty?
Georgia’s two U.S. senators hope so.
One of the original members of the Gang of Six, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, spoke to the Atlanta Press Club Monday when he restated his commitment to work on reducing the nation’s growing debt and its fiscal problems.
Posted inMichelle Hiskey
For Decatur’s Intown Hardware, family and creativity will survive Wal-Mart
When big-box Wal-Mart announced plans to move into indie-minded Decatur, neighbors mobilized protests.
A legal campaign began. Anti-Wal-Mart yard signs popped up. Across the road from the planned development, Tony Powers keeps the keen eye and taste that has made his family business – Intown Ace Hardware – survive and succeed.
As the world gets more homogeneous, his answer is a more diverse identity. His store’s evolving eclecticism mirrors the funky flowering of Decatur itself.
Posted inDavid Pendered
Mindful of Denver: Atlanta’s role model in transportation sales tax hitting snags in its program
Denver, a role model for metro Atlanta’s proposed transportation sales tax, is running into some problems with its own transit construction program.
A funding shortfall prompted Denver’s transit leaders to privatize almost a third of the region’s planned 122-mile transit system, plus work on 15 stations including the hub – Denver Union Station. National media stories in recent weeks have addressed current funding woes and construction delays.
These sorts of issues are just part of the territory when it comes to building one of the nation’s most ambitious transportation projects, a spokeswoman for Denver’s FasTracks said Monday. But they do bear attention as metro Atlanta voters consider creating a 1 percent sales tax to pay for road and transit improvements.
Posted inMoments, Moments Season 1
Lisa Borders’ Moment helping to integrate Westminster provided life and career lessons
Seventh grade can be an awkward time for any student, but for former Atlanta City Council President and current Grady Foundation President Lisa Borders, helping to integrate an independent private school in Atlanta made it especially challenging.
“What I learned is that I had the capacity not only be at that school, but to excel, and it taught me to deal with adverse circumstances, always,” Lisa said.
Posted inTom Baxter
War on ALEC looks more like corporate reshuffling
It serves the purposes of both sides to portray the recent departure from the American Legislative Exchange Council of several of its corporate sponsors as a “War on ALEC,” in which left-wing groups pressured Coca-Cola and other corporations into defecting from the organization. A war, for both the left and the right, makes for great fundraising.
In a sense this story line is accurate. The campaign led by the African American group Color of Change was the catalyst for the corporation’s break with ALEC over its promotion of “stand your ground” gun laws like the one involved in the Trayvon Martin case. Much the same can be said about the Media Matters for America drive against Rush Limbaugh in the wake of his comments about Sandra Fluke earlier this year. If you want to elevate these interest-group scrimmages up to the status of full-scale armed conflict, fine, we can call it a “war.”
But the alacrity with which so many companies followed Coca-Cola’s lead, like the rush away from Rush, makes it seem as if they were just waiting for the chance to close the checkbook on ALEC. Which makes sense, when you consider how much the contemporary corporate mindset is geared to the ruthless elimination of the extraneous.
Posted inMaria's Metro
Metro Atlanta’s economic future linked to federal urban affairs policy
Just one month after he was inaugurated, President Barack Obama established the White House Office of Urban Affairs with much fanfare.
The executive order stated:
“About 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas, and the economic health and social vitality of our urban communities are critically important to the prosperity and quality of life for Americans.
Posted inGuest Column
Micro-lender contributing to economic rebound a loan at a time
By Guest Columnist GRACE FRICKS, founder and CEO of the non-profit Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs
Small business is the backbone of the economy; the engine for economic recovery.
You won’t find a politician, a pundit or an economist who will disagree with that statement. But by 2008, with our economy in full slide, most lenders tightened the purse strings to the extent that a significant population of small business owners – those defined as microentrepreneurs – couldn’t get access to the money they needed to create or maintain their enterprise.
Posted inDavid Pendered
D.C. to Metro Atlanta: “No guarantee of federal funding for road, transit projects” in transportation sales tax
Congress and the Obama administration have made it clear that Georgians will vote July 31 on the proposed transportation sales tax with no clue as to how much money the federal government may pay to support the projects.
This news is significant in metro Atlanta. The 10-county region is counting on the federal government to pay nearly 12 percent of the total $7.1 billion cost (in today’s dollars) of the road and transit projects to be built if voters approve a 1 percent sales tax for transportation.
Without the federal funding, it seems unlikely that all projects will be completed. Neither a contingency plan, nor a priority list of projects, was part of the recommendation from the Atlanta Regional Roundtable, the group of 21 elected officials that created the construction list.
Posted inATL Business Chronicle, Maria's Metro
JA and Truett Cathy Foundation plan Finance Park, BizTown at GWCC
By Maria Saporta
Friday, April 20, 2012
Junior Achievement of Georgia Inc. is considering locating two hallmark programs — a JA Finance Park and a JA Biz Town — at the Georgia World Congress Center.
Posted inEleanor Ringel Cater
‘Bully’ — movie of five kids evokes raw feelings with raw footage
The biggest bully in the much-talked-about documentary, “Bully,” isn’t some vicious kid — though we see evidence of their cruelty in the faces of those they’ve attacked.
Rather, it’s an adult. An assistant principal, actually, named Kim. One of those bluff, pseudo-cheery types —her students are her “golden cherubs” — she gives you the creeps early on.
Posted inLatest News
Metro Atlanta arts leader Flora Maria Garcia to take similar job in Orlando
By Maria Saporta
A regional effort to build a regional arts and cultural mindset is losing its leader.
Flora Maria Garcia, CEO of the Metro Atlanta Arts & Culture Coalition, will become the new president and CEO of the United Arts of Central Florida starting May 29.
Garcia has been CEO of MAACC since 2007, when she succeeded Bill Nigut, who is now the Southeast Regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Posted inLatest News
Washington, D.C.’s public school chief continuing dramatic reforms
By Maria Saporta
Washington, D.C. — Education reform is alive and well in the nation’s capital.
Members of metro Atlanta’s LINK delegation were enamored with Kaya Henderson, the chancellor of Washington, D.C. public school system, after she addressed regional leaders about the change underway in one of the highest-profile systems in the nation.
Henderson joined the staff of the Washington, D.C. public schools in 2007 as part of the Michelle Rhee administration.
Posted inLatest News
Cobb’s David Connell rejoins LINK group; said he made a mistake
By Maria Saporta
Washington, D.C. — Cobb Chamber of Commerce President David Connell humbly stood before members of the metro Atlanta LINK delegation Thursday morning after to apologize.
The day before, as Connell was going through security at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, he was detained for having a handgun in his bag. He subsequently was arrested and taken to the Clayton County jail.
Connell finally rejoined the LINK delegation Thursday morning, and he went to the podium to address what had been the buzz of the trip on Wednesday.
