WORKHOUSE

​FIVERR, the company that is changing how the world works together, has unveiled a Public Relations Pro Service category with multi-faceted communications expert Adam Nelson, Founder & CEO of Workhouse, New York’s award-winning independent creative agency. 

As part of this collaboration, Nelson offers creative consulting services on Fiverr Pro, a platform of top-quality, hand-vetted professional freelancers in this special-edition Gig. Creators, entrepreneurs, brands and businesses now have the opportunity to work directly with Nelson on their communication needs. 

Fiverr community members interested in working with Nelson can see his Pro Gigs here https://www.fiverr.com/share/8k10v and here https://www.fiverr.com/share/p1DzG 

Featured in Fiverr’s global brand campaign “Connections,” the multi-million dollar campaign established in partnership with Mekanism, Nelson, who fully supports future vision, entrepreneurship and the freedom of freelance, is an award-winning communications professional highly regarded for his original thinking, imaginative ideas and unique hands-on approach.

"I have always believed that the best work is fostered through creative collaboration and Fiverr's mission, which is to change how the world works together, offers a trusted talent pool of creatives whose sole purpose is to skyrocket your ascent. They are the disrupters who stand at the forefront of change, eyes fixed upon the exciting intersection where business needs meet work solutions. As we celebrate Workhouse 20th anniversary, I could not be prouder to participate in the amplification of the heart of this brand. They are truly tomorrow’s transformational, today.” - Adam Nelson, CEO, Workhouse

Previous partnerships with notable collaborators, leading experts and influencers who teach the secrets of their domain to the Fiverr community and help empower them to do more have included Apple iconic logo designer, Rob Janoff, musician, philanthropist, and entrepreneur, Wyclef Jean, actor, director, Eli Roth and comedian and actress Lilly Singh.

Adam Nelson
Adam Nelson established Workhouse in 1999 as a leading boutique that develops stylish marketing and successful worldwide campaigns for a wide range of legendary clients including The Rolling Stones Ronnie Wood, Francis Ford Coppola, David LaChapelle, Interview Magazine, International Emmy Awards, Galleries Lafayette, Virgin, Porsche, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Henri Bendel, Saks Fifth Avenue, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, Chase contemporary Gallery & Versace. He was a founding partner & Executive Director of Asbury Park's House of Independents and served as the first Director of Communication for the Asbury Park Boardwalk. 

In 2019, Nelson received the Clutch Global Leadership Award in recognition of unorthodox industry command. Workhouse swept three of the industry's highest honors when it was bestowed with the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Silver Anvil Award, the PR News' Platinum PR "Wow Award" and the Bulldog Reporter Silver Medal Award. The agency was also named a PR Daily/ Dow Jones "Grand Prize: PR Campaign of the Year.” In 2015, Nelson was inducted into the New York Business Hall of Fame. Recognized for his outstanding creative, he received the U.S. Commerce Association's 2009 New York Award, National Congressional Committee’s 2003 National Leadership Award and was elected to serve as an Honorary Chairman of the Business Advisory Council. He was selected by the International Who's Who of Executives in 2004 and earned his BFA from the University of the Arts and attended certificate programs at both Yale and Oxford University. 

Fiverr
Fiverr's mission is to change how the world works together. The Fiverr platform connects businesses of all sizes with freelancers offering digital services in more than 200 categories, across 8 verticals including graphic design, digital marketing, programming, video and animation. Since inception, the platform has served over 5.5 million businesses and has facilitated over 50 million transactions. Fiverr's global community of freelancers spans across more than 160 countries. We invite you to visit us at fiverr.com, read our blog and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

NEW YORK CITY:  Join the mob this Saturday, 15 September from 12pm - 2pm when #SaveNYC holds a creative "cash mob" and guerrilla street art event for the ailing and iconic East Village institution Gem Spa, the beloved bodega located at the corner of St. Marks and Second Avenue. This sentimental 80 year old shop -- and (possible) birthplace of the Egg Cream -- has been home to an iconic animatronic Zoltar fortune teller and some of the world's most famous regulars including Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Madonna and the New York Dolls to name just a few. The business has been trying to keep afloat in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood combined with rising rents, and loss of tabacco and lottery ticket licenses which leaves loyalists worried about the milk-soda stalwart's future. Rumor has it that Citibank has expressed keen interest in taking over the location. 
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To participate in the #SaveNYC "Cash Mob" and help support this punk paradise in need, visit and purchase egg creams, pretzels, t-shirts, and toothpaste. Have your photo snapped against guerrilla street art created by DCX Accelerator, an acclaimed group of cultural activists and designers, who have radically transformed Gem Spa into a vivid dystopian vision -- asuredly what is to come of the new St. Mark's should we lose another beloved business. If you can't make the mob, come in anytime and drop a dime to maintain the hertitage of this dynamic and distinct destination. Bring your #SaveNYC sign or print one of your own here

Interested media who would like to learn more about #SaveNYC or schedule an interview with Jeremiah Moss please contact WORKHOUSE, CEO Adam Nelson via nelson@workhousepr.com or telephone +1 646. 969. 3255

The New York Dolls in 1973 at Gem Spa by popspotsnyc.com 

#SAVENYC Today, more than ever, the soul of New York is getting mugged by rising rents, suburbanization, rampant development, and a flood of chain businesses. Hyper-gentrification is destroying the cultural fabric of New York and City Hall is doing nothing to stop it.
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Jeremiah Moss, the journalist and blogger behind the popular and acclaimed “Vanishing New York,”and celebrated author of "Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul," has launched #SAVENYC (SaveNYC.Nyc) a call to action that gathers the voices of everyday New Yorkers, celebrities, small businesspeople, tourists —all who care about protecting the cultural fabric of the city — to send a strong message to City Hall: Save New York!  To save it, politicians, activists, and citizens must get tough and protect the city’s cultural heritage so we don’t lose anymore like CBGB’s, Cafe Edison, Colony Records, Florent, Lenox Lounge, 5Pointz, and many, many others.

Wherever the towers of big development rise, the rents rise with them. And as the rents hit nosebleed heights, New York vanishes. Neighborhood by neighborhood, borough by borough, this is how you kill a city.

From the glitzy corridor of the High Line in Manhattan, to the Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood around the Barclays Center to Long Island City in Queens, where Mayor de Blasio’s buddy Rob Speyer is hoisting three extravagant slabs of glass into the sky, our city is dying. It is a victim of its own so-called success.

People want to come to New York. Taylor Swift urges them in, singing, “It’s been waiting for you,” as if the city had nothing better to do but anticipate the arrival of newcomers. Bloomberg filled the whole town with tourists until we were bursting at the seams. Global oligarchs come to stash their dirty money in empty penthouses atop sky-high splinters, giving us nothing in return but long, dark shadows.
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Meanwhile, New Yorkers hurry from job to job, hustling to make enough to cover the rent. Median rent for vacant apartments is nearly 60% of median income, by one measure. If you make $100,000, a solidly middle-class sum in most places, you might qualify for low-income housing, but you’ll have to enter through a metaphorical poor door.
In between all this hustling, God forbid we should need our shoes repaired or shirts cleaned. Small businesses are being decimated. Every month, we lose another thousand mom-and-pops .

They’re not closing because business is bad. They’re closing because thelandlords are doubling, tripling, even octupling the rents — or simply denying lease renewals. With no penalties to stop them, landlords leave the spaces vacant for months or years, waiting for a national chain, a bank or a high-end business to pay the asking price of $40,000, $60,000, $80,000 a month.

Apparently, New York’s been waiting for you Starbucks, Olive Garden and Applebee’s. And for you Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors.

Small businesses in New York City have no rights. You’ve been here 50 years and provide an important service? Tough luck — your space now belongs to Dunkin’ Donuts. You own a beloved, fourth-generation, century-old business? Get out — your landlord’s putting in a combination Chuck E. Cheese and Juicy Couture.

And despite de Blasio’s rhetorical fears about gentrification, his progressive pro-development push may well only hasten the trend.

That’s why I started the #SaveNYC campaign. We’re collecting video testimonials from New Yorkers and out-of-towners, celebrities and small business owners, asking City Hall to preserve the cultural fabric of the greatest city on earth.

First, we must pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act. This bill, languishing for decades and quashed by Christine Quinn when she was City Council speaker, would give small businesses a fair chance to negotiate lease renewals and reasonable rent increases. It would keep our neighborhoods cohesive, helping to slow the tsunami of chain stores and put an end to landlord warehousing of empty, blighted spaces. It is our best hope.

Imagine a city filled with empty super-condos, money vaults in the sky. Our streetscapes will be sleek windows on the dead space of bank branches and real-estate offices.

There will be no more bookstores, no more theaters, no more places for live music. No more places to sit on a stool and drink a beer with regular folks.

When that day comes, and in some ways it is already here, what city will this be? It will be a hollow city for hollow men.

In a poem, John Updike warned: “The essence of superrich is absence. They like to demonstrate they can afford to be elsewhere. Don’t let them in. Their riches form a kind of poverty.” He was right.
It is late, but it’s not too late.
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Jeremiah Moss | Vanishing New York | #SaveNYC

​When you buy a Gig on Fiverr, you’re not just putting an item in your shopping cart. There’s a skilled independent professional on the other side of the screen who is ready and able to help you get it done—and in turn, you’re helping them build their portfolio and their business, too. We like to think of this as the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The Fiverr community was forged and fortified by these amazing relationships. So we set out to celebrate the dual nature of creative collaboration in our new #FiverrConnections campaign. And who better to embody the power of these partnerships than actual Fiverr community members? More than 20 real Fiverr buyers and sellers future of work-ed it for the camera so we could demonstrate what’s possible when you bring both sides of the marketplace together.

But these innovative individuals are so much more than just a pretty face. These *role* models build, design, write, animate, articulate, and accomplish whatever they set their mind to—and they’re just getting started. Over the next few weeks, we’ll introduce each of these amazing creative decision-makers. Read on the meet Adam: PR pro, CEO, and longtime Fiverr buyer.

Tell us a little about you. Who you are, where you’re from, what you do.

My name is Adam Nelson and I am the founder & CEO of New York’s award winning creative agency, Workhouse. In 1999, I started my own company with nothing more than a telephone and a fax machine in a decrepit, rented kitchen of a Soho film outfit. Why did I kick start a business? Desperation. Laid off in the middle of the economic depression of the late 1990’s, jobs of any kind were hopeless. I had $196 in the bank and frankly nowhere to go. Homeless, my original vision was simple: I just wanted to eat every day. So, I gathered a group of students, layabouts, waiters and interns to slowly build a PR agency from the ground up. 

My agency, WORKHOUSE, celebrates a history of builders who, once upon a time, went to produce honest labor. Over time we distinguished ourselves with successful representation of personalities like Lou Reed, photographer David LaChapelle, Francis Ford Coppola, The Rolling Stones and brands like Soho House, CBGB, Interview Magazine, and Porsche to name a few. 

In 2013, we were acquired by one of the nation’s premier public relation firms and I was appointed President of that agency. Yet less than a year after, confined to my cubicle, deflated, disenchanted and utterly depressed, I decided to take the company back. I landed alone in a single office not far from where it all began. Starting from scratch with a little more than a desk and a mobile phone. By doing so I joined an army of modern-age entrepreneurs hell-bent on rewriting the rules. 

Fiverr has allowed me to flourish. Propelling some of our most independently creative years of business. Because imagination is no longer held by opposition.

​What drives you? Why do you do what you do?

I like deviant composition. Creating work that both rallies and rouses. Because business is built on imagination and creation and desperation gets thing done. 

How have freelance services and connections made on Fiverr helped you grow your business?

In honor of Workhouse’s 20th Anniversary, we created a magazine called Boy Scout, intimate conversations between the world’s most creative people featuring profiles with writers, artists, thumb nosers and creative thinkers who posses the spit and polish to get things done. Boy Scout burns with diverse, artistic expression and crackles with an authentic, off-center spirit, highlighting subjects who continue to break revolutionary new ground through a wellspring of popular, untraditional, gay, and concrete culture. A portion of the proceeds received from advertising will benefit God’s Love We Deliver.

Over the past two weeks — and through the Christmas holidays– we have worked with Fiverr freelancers to transcribe the audio interviews for each of our 20 subjects. Without these capable and creative companions, we simply could not have brought the magazine to life, in both speed and virtue, this passion project of sound and fury. We also used Fiverr sound editors to mix EQ & sound quality for all 20 of our notable celebrity interviews, utilized additional Fiverr voiceover artists to create a series of significant DJ drops for the magazine’s audio ID for use within our podcast portal entitled Boy Scout Radio. A companion to the publication which can be found when both go live on 10 January 2019 at Http://www.boyscouted.com

The collaborative nature of services mixed with our own creative underscores the true strength and value of Fiverr’s incredibly rich community. Projects are possible like never before.

Previous to this, we utilized a Fiverr freelancer to craft a motion-graphic logo used in our 20th Anniversary film. It is certainly the most captivating aspect of that project and can be found on our homepage http://www.workhousepr.net

We have also used Fiverr voice over artists to create telephone greetings, SEO and ranking services, directory listings, google indexing and so much more.

Do you have any favorite Gigs or go-to sellers?

I have a Fiverr seller for every business need! I go to @dbsound for mixing and mastering, Fiverr Pro @sickmotion for animation, @roxyvox for voiceovers, and @jinglesfactory for sound design.

What advice do you have for first-time Fiverr buyers?

Seek and you shall find. Impossible is no longer a limitation as Fiverr helps provide access to affordable freelance talent.

Why are connections important for creative-thinking decision makers?

The best work is fostered through creative collaboration. Fiverr is tomorrow’s transformational, today.  

What are your business goals? What do you want to *do* next?

Now that I found Fiverr…whatever I imagine! 

How does it feel to be a Fiverr poster boy—literally?

I am proud to participate in the amplification of this incredible entity. One that supports future vision, entrepreneurship and the freedom of freelance. Fiverr’s a magical place filled with artisans and technical acrobats. A trusted talent pool whose sole purpose is to skyrocket your ascent. 

Workhouse is proud to announce the agency has been ranked by Clutch as one of the top PR firms in the world in the 2019 rankings report.

Celebrating it's 20th Anniversary, New York's award winning public relations agency is home to creative communicators who specialize in consumer marketing, corporate and public affairs, digital engagement, luxury, celebrity, travel, hospitality, retail, real estate sports and entertainment marketing. For ten consecutive years, Workhouse has received the "Best of Manhattan Award" by the U.S. Commerce Association (USCA).

In 2012, Workhouse swept three of the industry's highest honors when it was bestowed with the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Silver Anvil Award, the PR News' Platinum PR "Wow Award" and the Bulldog Reporter Silver Medal Award. The agency was also named as a PR Daily/ Dow Jones Finalist for "Grand Prize: PR Campaign of the Year." In 2015, Workhouse Founder & CEO Adam Nelson was inducted into the New York City "Business Hall of Fame".

The agency was also just awarded the coveted Communicator Award for their creation of Boy Scout Magazine

Workhouse is a full-service creative agency specializing in integrated marketing positioning emerging and established brands with celebrity craftsmanship. Workhouse provides full-service public relations, social media, brand promotion, creative consulting, not to mention, modern day marketing & branding.

Clutch is a Washington, D.C- based ratings and reviews marketplace that conducts ongoing research of the best providers in advertising, branding, PR and other creative and traditional industries. Clutch reaches out to our past clients to obtain reviews regarding our performance. They primarily do this through interview-style phone calls. You can see full transcripts about Workhouse on Clutch's review page.

As one of their clients stated, “They took an overwhelming scope of work and completed everything with efficiency and good humor.” Commitment to cultivating the best public relations, marketing, and branding shows through their client’s satisfaction. 

Workhouse also ranks particularly well in some of Clutch’s more popular categories, the world’s best corporate communications firms, crisis communications firms, and boutique PR firms.

Clutch also has two sister sites, Visual Objects and The Manifest.

Visual Objects is centered around digital and creative design companies, such as brand consultants, marketing agencies, and branding agencies. It allows potential clients to browse portfolios of a company’s work quickly and easily, and to see which one would be the best fit.

The Manifest also allows for quick and easy browsing, but for a wider range of businesses. It has short bios of companies in a broad swath of categories, from business services to social media marketing.

Key clients: 
Clients have included Lou Reed, The Rolling Stone's Ronnie Wood, Debbie Harry, Francis Ford Coppola, David LaChapelle, CBGB, Interview Magazine, Details Magazine, Galleries Lafayette, Ford Motor Company, Virgin, Assouline Editions, Rizzoli International Publications, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, Yoshiki, Chase Contemporary Galleries, Steve Stoute's Translation & UnitedMasters, Genesis Publications, Karmaloop, Coty, Versace, and Cynthia Rowley, offering award-winning campaigns across a broad spectrum of luxury, fashion and lifestyle brands.

WORKHOUSE is ranked as one of the world’s top PR firms on The Manifest.

For more information visit workhousepr.com

NEW YORK (8 May 2019) - Independent creative agency WORKHOUSE received the coveted Communicator Award as presented by the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts today for their creation of BOY SCOUT MAGAZINE at the 25th Annual Communicator Awards. With over 6,000 entries received from across the US and around the world, the Communicator Awards is the largest and most competitive awards program honoring creative excellence for communications professionals. Winners who received the competition’s highest honor, the Award of Excellence, include ESPN Films, Forbes Media, PepsiCo, Scorpion, WWE, and Publicis Sapient.
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WORKHOUSE created the special edition of Boy Scout Magazine as a commemorative in honor of the agency's 20th anniversary. The inaugural issue includes intimate conversations, both written + recorded, between the world’s most creative people featuring Workhouse clients, artists, thumb nosers and creative thinkers who posses the spit and polish to get things done. Interviews include Kate Pierson (B-52’s), Tama Janowitz (Slaves of New York), Matthew Modine (Stranger Things), Mele Mel & Scorpio (Grandmaster's Furious5), Bebe Buell (Pop Culture Icon), Legs McNeil (Please Kill Me), John Holmstrom (Punk Magazine), Amos Poe (Blank Generation), Anton Perich (Artist), Lady Rizo (Showstopper), Penny Arcade (Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!), Jonny Podell (Podell Agency), Jimmy Webb (I Need More), Jenn Hampton (Parlor Gallery) and many more. To read their stories or visit the radio page to hear each in their own words visit boyscoutmagazine.com 

THE COMMUNICATOR AWARDS is the leading international awards program honoring creative excellence for marketing and communications professionals. Founded by passionate communications professionals over two decades ago, The Communicator Awards is an annual competition honoring the best digital, mobile, audio, video, and social content the industry has to offer. The Communicator Awards is widely recognized as one of the largest awards of its kind in the world. The Communicator Awards are judged and overseen by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA), a 600+ member organization of leading professionals from various disciplines of the visual arts dedicated to embracing progress and the evolving nature of traditional and interactive media. Current AIVA membership represents a "Who's Who" of acclaimed media, advertising, and marketing firms including: PureMatter, Condè Nast, Disney, Republica, Tinder, MTV, Starbucks, Fast Company, Tribal DDB, Yahoo!, and many others. For more information about the Communicator Awards, please visit communicatorawards.com ​

Notable supporters who have officially endorsed Matthew Modine's candidacy for 2019 SAG-AFTRA President include Patricia Arquette, Rosanna Arquette, Sean Astin, Adam Baldwin, Billy Baldwin, Jessica Barth, Jennifer Beals, Megan Boone, Adam Brody, Kevin Corrigan, Marcia Cross, Bruce Davison, Marie Fink, Frances Fisher, Vincent D’Onofrio, Edi Gathegi, Rebekah Graf, Scott Grimes, Nick Guest, Pam Guest, Ed Harris, Melissa Joan Hart, Dennis Haysbert, Louis Herthum, Arliss Howard, Ernie Hudson, Jodi Long, Steve Lukather, David Jolliffe, Costas Mandalor, Heather Matarazzo, Kent McCord, Leighton Meester, Ruby Modine, Alfred Molina, Esai Morales, Bill Mumy, Glenn Plummer, Cristina Rackoff, Patricia Richardson, Maya Lynn Robinson, Alan Ruck, James Russo, Sebastian Siegel, Martin Sheen, Nancy Sinatra, Frank Stallone, Mira Sorvino, Eric Stoltz, Mena Suvari, Scottie Thompson, Stuart Townsend, Grace Van Patten, Lisa Ann Walter and Madeline Zima.

Modine is also especially proud to have received supporting endorsements from three past SAG Union Presidents including Ed Asner, Bill Daniels and Alan Rosenberg. 

MEDIA REQUESTS Interested media who wish to interview Matthew Modine please contact WORKHOUSE, CEO Adam Nelson via email nelson@workhousepr.com or telephone +1 212.645.8006. Images subject to copyright by Mackenzie Stroh and Dawidh Orlando 

In addition to being an internationally renowned, actor, filmmaker, author and photographer, Matthew Modine is a political activist and environmentalist. He has worked with many of the film industry’s most acclaimed directors on projects including Birdy, Full Metal Jacket, Dark Knight Rises, Married to the Mob, Vision Quest, Memphis Belle, Shortcuts, Showtime’s Weeds and the Netflix global phenomenon, Stranger Things.

Modine has performed on Broadway including The Miracle Worker in London’s West End, Arthur Miller’s Resurrection Blues directed by Robert Altman, and played Atticus Finch in a theatrical production of To Kill a Mockingbird at the Hartford Stage which became the most successful production in the theatre’s 60 year history. He has been nominated for multiple Emmy awards and is the recipient of a Golden Globe Award, Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup and Golden Lion for his work as an actor. He is the author of the award winning book, Full Metal Jacket Diary.

Modine has worked in the environmental sector for over four decades. He studied oceanography in San Diego and has been passionate advocate for the health and protection of the world’s oceans and sea life. Bicycling has been his primary form of transportation since moving to New York in 1980. Most of his environmental accomplishments are based on common sense solutions. In the mid-90’s, he single-handedly convinced the William Morris Talent Agency to evolve away from single page script printing to double-sided, effectively cutting industry wide paper consumption in half. He shared this idea of paper reduction with other actors and agencies and double-sided scripts became the industry standard, saving billions of sheets of paper over the years. While working on a film in Ouarzazate, Morocco, Modine helped to institute a plastic bottle deposit and recycling program. The effort not only cleared the desert of discarded bottles, but provided young kids that collected the bottles with pocket money (as it did for Modine when he was a boy). He is the founder of Bicycle for a Day (BFAD), whose mission is to encourage bicycling as a way toward better health and environmental sustainability. BFAD’s first event attracted some 14,000 participants. Presently, he is working on his global DO-ONE Campaign, a viral video campaign which encourages and empowers individuals to “do one” thing everyday to reduce wasteful behaviors. Modine has served on the board of NYC’s Transportation Alternatives, Madison Square Garden’s Garden of Dreams Foundation, Lustgarten  Pancreatic Cancer Foundation, Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy, Bronx NY, the Director of Humanitarian Activities for Twisted Sun, Inc. and the acting President of Hyper Chariot. He founded CardCarryingLiberal.net, a grassroots movement dedicated to human rights. In addition, Modine is an avid supporter of The Wounded Warrior Project,Purple Heart Foundation and God’s Love We Deliver. You can find out more about Matthew Modine by visiting his website  
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Follow Matthew Modine on Twitter @MatthewModine and his campaign via @MembershipFirst

Screen Actors Guild Award Best Ensemble, Stranger Things

Golden Globe Award Best Ensemble, Short Cuts 

Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup, Short Cuts

Michael Moore’s Traverse City FF Founder's Prize, Best Short Film, Jesus Was a Commie

Oldenburg Film Festival, Best Short Film Jesus Was a Commie

Dublin Film Festival Best Short, Super Sex

Coronado Film Festival Best Short Film, Super Sex

Venice Film Festival Best Actor, Streamers

Within an industry traditionally slow to transform, Public Relations needs a radical rebellion and must defend — and extend — its existing business.

Austrian Economist Joseph Schumpter coined the term “creative destruction” which describes the process of young, entrepreneurial companies sweeping away large incumbent enterprises akin to old men losing vitality as they age. This process of industrial mutation has reverberated and the street is littered with the likes of Blockbuster, Tower Records, Polaroid, and Sears: Industries who did not heed innovations call.

The province of Public Relations faces similar devaluation. Have this industry’s greatest innovations over the past two decades truly been a pitch shift from fax to email? Glossy press kits to EPK? Influencer marketing? Newsjacking?

Today we stare directly into the reflective glass of a communications field attempting to keep up in a world of self-promotion.

This is its clarion call to get with the times.

A recent survey states “84% of PR Pros Say Media Relations Remains Important But Adaption to New Challenges Seems Slow”

Is it therefore surprising that many believe the ancient PR model to be a critical patient?

Over the course of my 25 year history as a public relations executive and the founder of a firm that specializes in creative communications, I believe it is mission critical to riot here at the crossroads of communication for we are in a frontline battle that demands elicit changes to both our practice and paradigm.

William Penn said, “Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.”

Over four millennia, PR has evolved and expanded its influence worldwide.

Until it didn’t.

Primitive public relations bloomed in 1800 B.C when Sumerians used a farm bulletin to explain the growth of crops. The road to modern relations extended to the propagation of faith during the Middle Ages, creation of The Federalist Papers to support formal passage of the United States during Colonial Times, the pioneering press agentry of P.T Barnum and his touring circus, Franklin Roosevelt’s “Fireside Chats,” to the founding of the Public Relations Society of America in 1948. Examples that both established and esteemed the fine art of communication.

Trapped in tradition until the dawn of the digital age, our values soon became bipolar. Success was found in the combination of two different PR generations, relationship-building entwined against digital savviness.

In this era of lean newsrooms, whittling publications, and a world media hamstrung by ‘Fake News’ and ‘Alternative Facts,’ we must reclaim our relations by building innovation into our industries DNA to avoid a slow death.

Public Relations is now a hyphenate. It is a content partner of visual assets that extends well beyond the identification of media opportunities and interest segments, while constructing a strategy, system and culture that sustains growth. Experimentation and collaboration are the new arts and crafts within a blindingly innovative communications culture. The magic of our might involves both the management of our relationships and the crafting of emotional content to solve problems not easily measured. Its goal? To provide communication conceived as long and short term objectives which turns reputation into revenue.

And what is the revolutionary fix to our fragile infrastructure? A moonshot ascent into bold new realms?

No, industry leaders define the future as a premise termed PESO.

The PESO model (Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned Media) has been heralded with the potential to become the industry’s largest untapped opportunity; a data-driven mindset absolutely necessary to elicit metamorphosis.

Both agency and client-side PR pros point to the current landscape as:
• Content Creation (81%)
• Social Media (75%)
• Brand Reputation (60%)
• Media Relations (55%)

For an industry lauded for its imagination, this is nothing more than a band aid for a battlefield.
We can begin by recognizing the four forms of industry innovation:

Conventional Innovation: We must build upon our existing technological competencies in order to exploit our current business practices. PR must imminently rise, craft an agile approach to fuel a future through technical integration and media collaboration.

Disruptive Innovation: We must shift our present business model and embrace digital literacy and fluency within new and revolutionary roles as creators, makers and strategists.

Progressive Innovation: We must enable a major technological change, one that reinforces our existing business through skillset and storytelling in order to become leading lights in surpassing our audience expectations.

Engineered Innovation: We must institute radical change technology while simultaneously creating a new business model by integrating tech tools within an industry and fragmented media world rip for disruption.

Conventional, Disruptive, Progressive or Engineered, these innovations constitute a Public Relations riot.

I think of the cannon of women and men who aspire to change the world through howling headwinds and status quo — futurists with soul, sound and fury. Champions who do tomorrow’s work today. As we approach the 20th anniversary of my agency Workhouse, I aspire to aid in the ascension of aspiration, dive deep into the depths of disruption, and amplify the change we will make to the very nature of this industry’s facile foundation.

Not simply reconfigure the power percentages of possible media placement.
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To tackle the paradigm shift before us through evolutionary mechanisms, I am intensely interested in banding together industry-wide to divine a new direction forward for a business that should own its future.

#pr #publicrelations #innovation #marketing  #branding #communications #business

ilon Art Gallery is pleased to invite you to celebrate the exhibition by David Burnett in partnership with Intaglio Blockchain titled "Bob Marley: Soul Rebel" on view from Friday, 29 March through Saturday, 25 May 2019. An opening reception will which will take place this Friday, 29 March 2019 from 6pm-8:30pm at iLon Art Gallery located at 204 West 123rd Street in Harlem, New York City. RSVP info@workhousepr.com

Interested media who wish to interview the artist, obtain press packets or images please contact Workhouse, CEO Adam Nelson via email nelson@workhousepr.com or telephone +1 212. 645.8006. 
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Legendary photojournalist David Burnett, in the mid 70’s, turned his camera to a young musician named Bob Marley. Bob Marley had started an industry revolution and was bringing attention to his Jamaican homeland and the Rastafarian culture. This was a phenomenon that has had a profound influence on music since. 

“Our assignment was about reggae, and Bob Marley was the man,” writes David Burnett. “I was on assignment for Time Magazine to go to Jamaica and visually capture the roots of reggae". Burnett rejoined Marley in 1977, this trip with Rolling Stone Magazine, to photograph Bob Marley and Wailers for the Exodus tour thru Europe. Capturing the legend at an exceptional moment in time, Burnett’s work intersects with both the zenith of Marley’s career and the traumatic upheaval of Bob Marley's flight from Jamaica after an attempt on his life. 

As for any reggae lover or music history buff, David Burnett offers a matchless glimpse into the Bob Marley life at home in Jamaica. David Burnetts’s photographs take us to the soul of Bob Marley, Jamaica and its people.  

This exhibition is proud to be presented by Intaglio Blockchain. Intaglio's groundbreaking technology provides artists, museums, dealers collectors and auction houses with a trusted network of blockchains to record authenticity and provenance. Blockchain technology increases trust by its immutable, date and time stamped ledger-type technology, where records are public and information is transparent. All information placed on the Intaglio blockchain is recorded by a verified, certified entity. Blockchain technology can do what no other technology has been able to do for art and photography: provide immutable, trustworthy provenance. Objects are enriched with links to historic, cultural and academic information by sourcing data from the Getty Museum and the Library of Congress. 

All 35 works presented by David Burnett in Bob Marley: Soul Rebel are recorded on an Intaglio Blockchain. Join us Friday at the opening celebration for a the inaugural demonstration of this incredible technology. For more visit intaglioblockchain.com.

David Burnett is a legendary photojournalist, known for his work covering world leaders, international conflicts, and Olympic medalists. Traveling to more than seventy-five countries, Burnett has produced photographic essays for Time, Life, Fortune, The New Yorker, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and many others. His awards include Magazine Photographer of the Year from the Pictures of the Year Competition, the World Press Photo of the Year, and the Robert Capa Award from the Overseas Press Club, to name but a few. David launched his photographic career as an intern at Time magazine in 1967. From 1970 to 1972, he covered the Vietnam War as a staff photographer for Life magazine. In 1975, he co-founded Contact Press Images in New York. 

ilon Art Gallery is a boutique fine art and photography gallery located in the heart of Harlem. In a historic brownstone, the gallery is an inviting venue to view art and gather. The gallery provides unique access to a vast amount of photographers and artists throughout the world. Although the gallery has days it is open to the public please, check the website www.ilonartgallery.com or Instagram @ilonartgallery, it is by appointment. Please email Loni at loni@ilon.com.

Loni Efron, gallery director, curator, archivist and software designer founded the gallery in 2014 out of a love of photography. Over two decades earlier, Loni founded ilon and Company, one of the first archival firms in the country working, with the industries top artists. Starting with two clients, Annie Leibovitz and David LaChappelle, she began her archiving empire. Archiving and monetizing the collections are the main objects however creating an optimal, post production workflow using the latest technologies is essential to the solution. Loni designed the iDatabase family- iArchive, iGallery, iCollection, iMange, iInventory; custom archive solutions that double as tools for the entire office management solution and part of her custom toolbox.