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Shel Holtz, SCMP

Shel Holtz, SCMP (Certified Strategic Communication Management Professional), is currently director of Internal Communication at Webcor, a San Francisco-based commercial contractor. He is responsible for employee and executive communication, as well as social media. He also supports Webcor’s corporate public relations efforts.

Before joining Webcor in October 2017, Shel spent 21 years as principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, where he brought more than 40 years of organizational communications experience in both corporate and consulting environments to his long list of clients. He is experienced in employee communications, corporate public relations, crisis communications, media relations, financial communications, investor relations, marketing communications, and compensation and benefits communications. In addition to integrating technology into communications strategies, his expertise includes strategic communications planning, change management, organizational culture, business initiatives, and communications research.

Before forming Holtz Communication + Technology, Shel was senior communications consultant and the communications practice leader for Alexander & Alexander Consulting Group in San Francisco, California. (A&ACG has since been acquired by Aon Consulting.) Other positions include director of corporate communications for Allergan, Inc., a Fortune 400 pharmaceutical company, and at Mattel, Inc. He also has worked for William M. Mercer, Inc., ARCO and Transamerica Financial Corporation.

In addition to his consulting and development work, Shel is a regular speaker on topics surrounding the application of online technology to strategic organizational communication. He speaks regularly at IABC and Ragan Communication conferences. He also has been on programs for the International Quality and Productivity Center, The American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business, the American Gas Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts, the Association of California Water Agencies, and the Western Pension & Benefits Conference, among others. He also spoke regularly on the Lexis-Nexis touring seminar, “Communicating in a Wired World.”

Shel is a five-time winner of IABC’s Gold Quill award (most recently winning in 1997 for external Web sites) and was named IABC/Los Angeles’s Communicator of the Year in 1988. Shel served six years on IABC’s executive board, two as director of U.S. District 6 and four as a director-at-large. While a director-at-large, he held the Technology portfolio, among others. During his term on the board, he served three times as a member of the executive committee. He has also served as chapter president for IABC/Los Angeles and in a variety of other volunteer positions in IABC at the chapter, district and international levels. Shel earned his IABC accreditation (ABC/Accredited Business Communicator) in 1984.

In 2005, Shel was named an IABC Fellow, the highest honor IABC confers on its members. He also is an Accredited Business Communicator through IABC.

Shel is a Senior Fellow with the Conference Board’s Marketing and Communications Center and a Platinum Fellow of The Mayo Clinic Social Media Network.

Shel has applied online technology to his communication efforts on behalf of companies and clients since the mid-1980s. His most recent book is “Tactical Transparency,” co-written with John C. Havens and published by Jossey-Bass, an imprint of Wiley. Shel is also the co-author of “How to Do Everything with Podcasting,” co-written with Neville Hobson and published by Osborne/McGraw-Hill and “Blogging for Business,” co-written with Ted Demopoulos and published by Kaplan. Earlier books include “Corporate Conversations,” a guide to employee communications, published by Amacom. “Public Relations on the Net,” published by AMACOM; and “The Intranet Advantage,” published by Ziff-Davis Press. He also wrote the manuals, “Communication and Technology” and “Communicator’s Guide to Intranets,” published by Ragan Communications and “Writing for the Wired World,” published by IABC.

Shel graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in Journalism from California State University, Northridge, in 1976.

FIR #309: Measuring Stuff That Didn’t Happen

January 12, 2023 by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson Leave a Comment

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In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel tackle a question from listener Kris Hansen about developing a metrics dashboard for her organization’s leadership.
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Filed Under: For Immediate Release

FIR #308: Here Come Virtual Workers

January 5, 2023 by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson 1 Comment

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The virtual worker industry is booming in China. For about $14,000 a year — 80 percent less than it cost just a year earlier — you can get a three-dimensional virtual person to handle everything from tours to customer support. With expectations that the industry will grow by 50 percent annually for the next three years, the arrival of virtual persons in the West is inevitable. Neville and Shel dive into the industry in this short midweek episode of “For Immediate Release.”
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Filed Under: For Immediate Release

FIR #307: We’ll Pay You…In A Year

January 3, 2023 by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson Leave a Comment

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Keurig Dr. Pepper has stirred up a controversy by issuing an RFP that included payment terms of 360 days. While some big PR and advertising agencies may be able to wait a year to be paid for their work, it’s most likely a non-starter for small and minority-owned agencies. (If most big clients turned to one-year payment terms, even the big agencies might have difficulty accommodating the requirement.) The agency world has united in its condemnation of the move, and Keurig Doctor Pepper’s response is tepid, to say the least. Neville and Shel discuss the situation in this short midweek episode of “For Immediate Release.”
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Filed Under: For Immediate Release

Circle of Fellows #88: The Global Communications Certification

January 3, 2023 by Shel Holtz Leave a Comment

According to the Global Communication Certification Council, “Professional certifications through GCCC® give you the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise and provide evidence of your outstanding abilities. Becoming certified engages you in the process of life-long learning that elevates your career and provides a structure for keeping your skills fresh and applicable.”

At 4 p.m. ET on Thursday, January 19, join moderator Shel Holtz, SCMP, and four IABC Fellows for a conversation about certification. The discussion will range from why certification matters and what the CMP and SCMP certifications represent to how to prepare and how to maintain certification after earning it. Participants in the live stream will be able to ask questions and share observations in real-time.
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Filed Under: News

FIR #306: Brand Name Pronunciation As A Marketing Ploy

December 29, 2022 by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson Leave a Comment

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It’s not unlikely that you have been mispronouncing some well-known company and brand names like IKEA, Hyundai, Porsche, Bayer, and Adidas. Some brands use common mispronunciations as the foundation for a marketing campaign, as Hyundai has undertaken in the UK.  Neville and Shel explore some of these campaigns and examine the broader issue of hard-to-pronounce brand names in this short midweek episode of the “For Immediate Release” podcast.
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Filed Under: For Immediate Release

FIR #305: We See You And You Can’t Come In

December 26, 2022 by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson Leave a Comment

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A petulant venue owner is using facial recognition software to keep people with whom he has issues from entering his spaces — including a mom with a Girl Scout troop. Also in this monthly long-form episode of the “For Immediate Release” podcast, Neville and Shel discuss the value of virtual goods and whether brands should start taking them seriously; business schools are exploring the potential for teaching in the metaverse — especially classes about digital technology; it hasn’t been a great year for metaverse activations, but at least brands are learning; it has been a year since Lush closed its Instagram and Facebook accounts, which means it’s time to see how that decision turned out; and the better ChatGPT (the AI text-generating chatbot) gets, the more worried some people get about its impact on truth; and Dan York shares a year-end Tech Report with a range of updates including using WordPress for newsletters, WordPress’s State of the Word 2022, and Tumblr Live.
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Filed Under: For Immediate Release

FIR #304: Reaching Employees Through Social Media

December 23, 2022 by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson Leave a Comment

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Social media consultant Arik Hanson wrote recently in a LinkedIn article that companies should consider devoting some of their LinkedIn activities — 20 percent is the volume he suggests — to matters of interest to employees. That’s because data shows that 30 percent of a brand page’s engagement comes from the company’s employees. In this short mid-week episode of “For Immediate Release,” Neville and Shel discuss the opportunity for communicators to reach employees on LinkedIn, along with the challenges and possible pitfalls.
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Filed Under: For Immediate Release

FIR #303: The Quest for a Twitter Alternative

December 20, 2022 by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson Leave a Comment

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One list includes 50 potential Twitter replacements — none of which will offer every one of Twitter’s features and none of which includes everyone you’re currently following on the bird site. How do you decide where to go when you conclude that maintaining your current Twitter activity is no longer feasible? Neville and Shel sort it out — with a focus on Mastodon — in this short mid-week episode of “For Immediate Release.”
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Filed Under: For Immediate Release

Circle of Fellows #87: Year-End Reflections

December 19, 2022 by Shel Holtz Leave a Comment

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Four IABC Fellows looked back on 2022, which was a consequential year for communicators, in this final Circle of Fellows of the year. The evolution of COVID-19 from pandemic to endemic led companies to bring employees back to the office, creating a need to communicate the new hybrid work reality (or, in some cases, why employers were insisting everyone come back full-time while others retained a remote work arrangement). “Quiet Quitting” became a topic of discussion as dissatisfied employees dialed back the effort they gave to the organizations. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion remained an important topic. And there was no shortage of crises to occupy communicators’ time. The episode was live-streamed on December 15.
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Filed Under: Circle of Fellows

FIR #302: Blockchain’s Widely Exaggerated Demise

December 13, 2022 by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson Leave a Comment

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New York Times columnist and Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman wrote recently that the crypto crash is far worse than even the direst descriptions and that it is proof that blockchain was never a viable technology. At the same time, Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon sees value in blockchain technology, but only if companies like his control it. The truth is, blockchain is thriving outside of speculative crypto investing. Neville and Shel explore blockchain’s future in this short midweek episode of “For Immediate Release.”
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Filed Under: For Immediate Release

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