Happy to announce that Pilgrim Spirit Communications’ inaugural book project, All Creation Waits: The Unfulfilled Promise of Christianity, by Katherine C. Keough, is now available for order through the author’s e-store and through Amazon.com.

I’ve leaned a lot in this self-publishing process.  It’s been a challenge and an adventure but also great fun and enormously satisfying.  I already have other book projects in mind and am eager to tackle more.

As I write, we are eagerly awaiting the first proof of the book, which will be available through Amazon.com and additional sources. I will add information as the book becomes publicly available.  I will also be adding book design and layout to the services routinely offered by Pilgrim Spirit.

Kedda will be presenting on the book at the annual Search for Meaning: Pacific Northwest Spirituality Book Festival at Seattle University on Saturday, Feb. 13.  Last year’s festival was a feast for anyone interested in exploring matters of faith, spirituality and theology with some of the region’s finest writers and thinkers.  This year’s slate of speakers promises to be equally inspiring, with keynote speakers Kathleen Norris and Gustav Niebuhr.  It’s a don’t miss!

In today’s celebrity-obsessed culture it’s easy to lose sight of the extraordinary individuals who surround us every day.  Everyone–and I mean EVERYONE– has a story.  For me one of the great privileges of the writing life is being invited to share that story.

In recent months I’ve been writing some freelance pieces for the local Senior Scene newspaper, and I’ve been simply bowled over by some of the stories I’ve heard along the way.

Consider, for example, Ilse’s story: In 2008, at 80 years of age, widowed for nearly 25 years and retired for over 20, she took up a brand new challenge: competitive swimming! When I met Ilse Walters, she had just returned from San Francisco, where she competed in the National Senior Games.  Denied a silver medal in the 50 yard breaststroke by a technicality, she remains undaunted and is already planning her winning strategy for the next National Games in 2011.  That strategy includes not only swimming additional events, but possibly competing in track events as well!  I wouldn’t count her out; she’s the reigning gold medalist and record holder for her events in the Washington State Senior Games.  I think she’s my new role model for energy and determination.

Rivaling Ilse for determination are the two fellows I interviewed for a piece scheduled to publish in November. Joe Zelazny and Chuck O’Donahue are veterans committed to honoring all those who have served honorably in uniform. They are spearheading a project to create a Veterans’ Wall of Honor at Tacoma’s War Memorial Park.  Unlike most such tributes, their wall creates no distinctions among the service branches and no restrictions on who can be included. They want to honor anyone and everyone who has served, living or deceased, to preserve their memories and honor the history that, as they put it, “doesn’t get covered in classrooms.”  Their passion for the project is evident.  It’s clearly a labor of love; they seem undaunted by the fact that there are some 25,000 retired veterans in Pierce County.

And then there’s Edryce: at age 80, attending the Tacoma Job Club, still looking for new opportunities and ways to make a difference in the world. When I interviewed her, she described her rich and varied career path and then told me she was getting ready to try her hand at stand-up comedy.  I can’t wait!

Where do you find your everyday heroes?

Jones’ Principles of Effective Communications Planning

1. One size does not fit all.

Any number of high-priced consultants will be happy to create a communications plan for you, sometimes just by pulling a plan out of the file and changing the names to protect the guilty. And hundreds of web sites offer you templates to do essentially the same thing yourself: here’s a plan, just fill in the holes. But your communications plan should not be a piece of Swiss cheese. Specificity counts, at every stage of the planning process. If it’s not tailored to your organization and your situation, it’s not a workable plan. And if it’s not a workable plan, it’s a waste of time and resources. Your plan may be an overall communications strategy, or it may be tied to a specific event, program or announcement. The principles will remain the same, though tools and action steps may differ.

And where do you start building a plan that is specific and tailored to your organization? First you must …

2. Know your organization.

Before you can do any kind of effective communications planning, you need to know your starting point. This means asking yourself what you know about your organization: its goals, priorities, people, culture, and not least, its modus operandi (how are decisions made and priorities set?). Do you know what other people know, or think they know, about your organization? (A SWOT analysis may be useful here.) What are your organization’s core messages? Call it the 30-second pitch, the boilerplate or the elevator speech, but all your subsequent messaging will flow from that. And what do you know about your organization’s audiences, not only primary but also secondary and tertiary?

Knowing your organization is critical to the next principle of communications planning, which is …

3. Go team.

Organizational communication cannot be a solo exercise. This is a team sport. Be inclusive. Who needs to be part of the planning process? No communications plan works without buy-in from organizational leadership, and no communications plan works without buy-in from those called to put it into action. What creates that essential buy-in is a sense of shared ownership. Does that mean everything must be decided by committee? No. It does mean that the affected parties need to be invited into the planning process and have their input acknowledged from the beginning and along the way. This also helps to elicit priorities.

And speaking of priorities, principle number four is …

4. Pick your battles.

I’ve never yet seen an organization that didn’t have more to do than time or people to do it. The first law of the workplace is that you (individually or collectively) cannot do it all. You will never be able to do it all. So you need to determine what matters most and allocate your resources there. This is where priorities matter. Setting priorities is about recognizing what matters most and to whom. A communications department is a service department; it doesn’t work for itself or set priorities in a vacuum. Remember the team we talked about? Communications priorities need to reflect the mission, values and goals of the entire organization.

So you have your team and have begun to develop your plan and priorities. How are you going to put this into action? Remember this principle:

5. Use what you have.

Don’t waste time fretting about the tools you wish you had. Take a realistic look at the available resources of time, budget, staff and tools. This doesn’t rule out looking for creative ways to acquire tools you don’t have — I can give you examples of campaigns where I’ve used donated or in-kind services to expand my tool kit. I’ve worked in communications for a long time, in large and small organizations, with widely varying resources. What all of these organizations have had in common is that whatever resources they had, they always wanted something else. My point is, don’t get bogged down in wishful thinking; make good use of what resources you have.

Speaking of using what you have brings me to my next principle, which is …

6. The tried is not always true.

Sometimes the tried is just tired. I worked for years in a ministry setting, and there’s an old saying that claims the seven last words of the Church are “we have always done it that way.” Sound familiar? The Church has no monopoly on that one.  There’s a safety and comfort in using “tried and true” techniques, and there’s a reason they’re tried and true, but the communications landscape is changing constantly and continues to offer effective new tools all the time. Don’t feel compelled to use a new trick just because it’s new, but don’t be afraid to explore new tools and methods and include them in your planning. Social networking, for instance, is more than just a fad. It’s a whole new set of communications tools that can be both effective and economical.

So before I run off to my Facebook page, I want to bring you to my next principle, and that is …

7. Tell the story.

Communications planning is sometimes treated as a science, but at its heart, communications is always about telling a story. And storytelling is not a science but an art — an art that touches on the essence of who we are as human beings. One of the things that excites me most about working in communications is discovering great stories and finding ways to tell them, to shine a light on folks and organizations who are doing interesting things — wonderful things, not-so-wonderful things, inspiring things, even maybe disturbing things. Stories capture our attention and move us to action. Is there an important issue that needs to be spotlighted? Find a way to put a face on that issue. Who is affected by it and how are they affected?

While you are working your plan and telling the story, you can’t forget principle number eight, which is …

8. Keep the goal in sight.

You may put a lot of effort into developing a communications plan, and once the plan has been developed and approved, there are two common pitfalls to avoid. The first is that the plan gets put on a shelf or into a drawer and only dusted off or aired out every year or two while things muddle along as usual from day-to-day. The second scenario may be even worse: the plan becomes a roadmap to be followed slavishly. Beware of that “tunnel vision.” Even the best of plans are subject to changing circumstances and may need course correction. If you become fixated on following the plan without deviation, you risk missing out on great opportunities. Don’t let the plan become an end in itself; it needs to be a working document, ready and able to incorporate a changing environment.

Speaking of changing environments brings me to one of my favorite principles … I’m thinking of having it tattooed on my forehead, or at least writing it on my bathroom mirror. That is …

9. Be flexible.

The unexpected will happen. You cannot plan for every contingency. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you will save yourself enormous stress. I’m usually a quick study, but this is a lesson that took me a long time to learn. Had I learned it sooner, it probably would have saved me many gray hairs. But meanwhile, always remember the wise words of John Lennon: “Life is just what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

And my final principle of effective communications planning is …

10. It’s not over until the evaluations are in.

Forget about the fat lady singing. If the final piece of the plan isn’t a measurement or evaluation process, you’re not finished. It should be obvious but in my experience is the most often overlooked element of planning. How do you know whether you’ve accomplished what you set out to do? Evaluation not only helps determine how effective your plan has been, but also provides valuable information for future planning.

And there you have my personal principles of effective communications planning. Your mileage may vary, but these are lessons I have learned, some of them the hard way and some of them more than once. In future posts, I intend examine some of these principles in more depth and offer some examples. But I’d also like to hear from readers about their stories and examples. Do you have a question or comment on communications planning? Feel free to share!

The headliners are Rabbi Bob Alper, Azhar Usman, and Rev. Susan Sparks.  Rabbi Bob Alper bills himself as “the world’s only practicing clergyman doing stand-up comedy – intentionally.”  A stand-up comic for 20 years, he is an ordained rabbi who holds a doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary and led congregations for 14 years.

Azhar Usman is a Chicago-based stand-up comedian, the son of Muslim immigrants from India.  Though trained as an attorney, he has been a full-time comic for years.  Usman is a co-founder of Allah Made Me Funny: The Official Muslim Comedy Tour, and was featured in the recent film Allah Made Me Funny: Live in Concert.”

Rev. Susan Sparks trained as a trial lawyer, then became a standup comedian before finding a calling as an ordained minister and preacher.  She is currently the senior pastor of Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City, the first woman pastor in its 160-year history.

The Interfaith Comedy Show is tomorrow night, Sunday June 7, at 7 p.m. at Urban Grace, 902 Market Street in Tacoma.  It promises to be an interesting evening.  Tickets are $15 at the door; check it out if you’re in the neighborhood.