As the Federal Trade Commission drafts new rules on bloggers’ disclosure of sponsored content, BlogHer, the community of thousands of influential female bloggers, is in the midst of its fifth annual convention in Chicago.

We attended BlogHer in 2006 on behalf of our client WeightWatchers.com. The debate about the precarious relationship between trusted information sources and marketers with dollars aimed at garnering positive product reviews was percolating then and it’s raging now. (Incidentally, WeightWatchers.com was paying to attend the conference and exhibit, but they weren’t paying bloggers for posts.)

Days before this year’s conference kicked off, Elissa Camahort Page, the community’s co-founder, told AdAge that disclosure alone is insufficient. Her network is advocating that bloggers create a separate section of their blogs for reviews based on freebies, perks or outright compensation.

We’re members of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and we’ve always been proponents of transparency. Camahort Page’s new proposal’s an interesting one. Ultimately though, which of the many proposals on the table is adopted doesn’t matter as much as continuing the lively dialogue. It’s important that there’s real forward movement on the establishment of best practices and policies – something both bloggers and marketers desperately need – especially since this world is evolving so quickly (next frontier: sponsored tweets).

Publishers, like mommy bloggers, have a right to monetize their work – how else will they survive and thrive? But they also need to retain their credibility and authenticity. We’re hopeful that as the industry moves towards consensus on these issues we’ll strike a satisfactory balance.

Campus CEO book cover

With what may be the biggest political corruption scandal in New Jersey history unfolding, I am likely the only person writing about its gubernatorial race. But yesterday it was big news when Randal Pinkett, entrepreneur and winner of The Apprentice 4, held a press conference to announce that he’s still interested in running as incumbent Jon Corzine’s lieutenant governor – if the governor will have him.

There has been a great deal of media coverage about Mr. Pinkett’s readiness for the role since Governor Corzine announced he was on the short list. Numerous articles, blog posts and editorials have essentially laughed at the notion of a winner of The Apprentice running the state should something happen to the governor. These days, it seems anything associated with Donald Trump generates at minimum a chortle, if not a heavy dose of skepticism. It’s a shame, because we know Randal and his time on The Apprentice is a blip on the continuum of his accolades and accomplishments.

I am not interested in recapping his resume; other pieces have done that. Instead I’d like to shed light on Randal, the person. Rose Communications represented the publisher of Randal’s book, “Campus CEO: The Student Entrepreneur’s Guide to Launching a Multi-Million Dollar Business.” We worked directly with Randal for several months leading up to the launch of the book as well as in the weeks that followed it. He is at once intelligent, charming and approachable. He definitely had a point of view about his book and how it should be introduced. But he was also impressively collaborative, bringing in his own public relations counsel as well as the firm that handled The Apprentice. He is as passionate about helping people as he is about achieving success. Randal was always accessible to us, listened to our perspective and expressed his gratitude for our work.

Of course, I have no say as to whom Governor Corzine selects as his running mate and I’ll do my own due diligence when that choice is made. But what I know now is that Randal is the victim of media outlets that took the easy route by focusing almost singularly on his time on The Apprentice. It was deplorable how they placed the focus on his handling of individual tasks on the show without making mention of all the things he’d achieved before and after that short season on television. Randal seemed to stay out of the fray, which is the smart thing for a potential running mate to do until he’s officially named. But he wisely took control of the message yesterday when he offered his perspective to the media.

Governor Corzine supposedly has until Monday to make his decision. Whether Randal’s time is next week or in the future, I hope voters take the time to get to know him beyond what they or someone they know saw on “reality” television.

Abby Cadabby on her love of words!

When you communicate for a living, words are everything. You fixate on elements of language that most people do not even consider. Nothing (well, almost nothing) excites you more than finding a mistake in a major daily newspaper or reverse-engineering a politician’s speech to determine the writer’s objective.

In our business, we spend a lot of time working with clients to craft their messages to various audiences. In most cases, we’re not telling them what (the idea) to say, but how (the words) to say it so it resonates. The perception people have of you, your business or organization is largely dependent on your ability to tell your story. The words you choose shape people’s ideas and often comprise the lexicon they use to talk about you.

When I launched Rose Communications in 2003, I decided to name the firm after my great grandmother, Rose Ruth Shub, after whom I was named. It wasn’t my intention, but this single word choice resulted in people calling me Rose. I can understand how someone who meets me as the founder of Rose Communications would tend to call me Rose, even if I never introduced myself or closed an email with that name. But there are people who have known me for many years who transitioned from calling me Rosemary or Ro to Rose after I started the company. Fortunately, I am thrilled to honor her memory in this way.

The words you choose not to use are equally as important. I’ve worked with a number of spokespeople who used verbal crutches to fill silent moments or buy time between articulated thoughts. For example, an executive from one of the top technology companies in the world said, “That is there,” at the end of every third or fourth sentence of a presentation or interview. It obviously added no value to his message and was a major distraction. Other, more common phrases people tend to lean on include “at any rate” and “so forth and so on.”

Why am I blogging about this topic today? I was rereading recent blog posts when I uncovered an apparent verbal crutch of my own. In my two most recent posts, I used the phrase, “fast forward” to bring the reader to the present. When I also discovered the phrase in one of my colleague’s recent posts, I felt compelled to come clean.

Every e-mail, news release, speech or interview presents an opportunity to carefully consider the words you choose to communicate your ideas. And even those of us in the business can benefit from a good editor, as those words will often be repeated for days, weeks or even years to come.