Developer Doug Sanford, right, reviews development plans with United States Senator Susan Collins this morning, during a tour of the North Dam Mill in Biddeford.

Pleasantries aside, I do think Senator Collins was genuinely flabbergasted at the thriving residential and entrepreneurial communities within the walls of the vast complex, as well as the enormous potential for economic growth in downtown Biddeford-Saco. Until you actually walk through these mills, in Biddeford and in Saco, you don’t really grasp what fantastic potential is here, just waiting to be unleashed.

Does the smell of skunk exhilarate you? No? How about garbage? Do you get “positive feedback” from taking a good whiff? Me neither.

Biddeford is about to negotiate a new contract with MERC, the downtown garbage incinerator that creates odor nuisances and hampers economic development in Biddeford-Saco. In advance of those discussions, listen to whatDESPERATELY NEEDS MEDIA TRAINING: This "creative explanation" falls very flat. MERC’s environmental officer, Jim Secunde, told a local high school student as he interviewed Secunde for a public affairs program. Click the image to the right for the VIDEO.

Attention, Maine PR agencies looking for new clients --- this guy needs media training. To thank me for this new business lead, please remind Mr. Secunde that it’s illegal for MERC to create any odor nuisance. According to DEP regulations and MERC's current contract with the City of Biddeford, the plant is REQUIRED to maintain negative pressure at all times so that odor cannot escape. No odor nuisance is the standard, and MERC is legally obligated to meet that standard. Suggest to Mr. Secunde, gently, that he should keep that in mind in all future interviews.

Some of the good newspaper reporting here in Maine has not gone unnoticed. Congratulations to the Advertiser-Democrat.

But take note --- there are still signs of life in some Maine newspapers. The Advertiser-Democrat (reporter Matt Hongoltz-Hetling and editor A.M Sheehan) have just won a George Polk Award for Local Reporting. And The Forecaster papers, directed by Mo Mehlsak, one of the best newspaper editors in northern New England, won an award for Investigative Reporting last fall. Recently I've also seen some excellent pieces (by that I mean lengthy and detailed) by Scott Thistle at the Sun Journal, and business reporter Matt Wickenheiser at the Bangor Daily News.

It looks to me like these folks and a few others are setting the standard. As Maine newspapers continue to struggle in the new information age, at least they have a few good examples to emulate.

So in a great PR move, the Turnpike is taking steps to keep me from waiting in line at toll booths behind people who still pay cash, and it’s doing some serious belt-tightening.

What’s not to like? High marks for new executive director Peter Mills. I could use news like this more often.

The same goes for radio and TV news. Rarely do these traditional media do much more than recycle what’s already been reported online. This has seismic implications for how to promote your business or organization. What’s more important, advertising or PR?

Check out this analysis by Steve Cody, the author of What’s Keeping Your Customers Up At Night? He offers a succinct primer on the difference between PR and advertising:

• When advertising, an organization selects the precise words it wants to communicate. It also determines the exact page, size and date of the advertisement, the specific media property in which the ad will appear and, critically, the words and visuals that will accompany the corporation's value proposition.
• Public relations, which is sometimes referred to as unearned media, is more of a dog's breakfast. It involves reaching out to an objective reporter, editor, or producer with the facts and figures about an organization, its products or services and hoping the journalist finds the information of interest to her readers, viewers, or listeners. But, and this is a huge but, it is entirely up to the journalist what is written and when it appears.

As a result of these two fundamental differences, advertising is used to create awareness, while PR is used to enhance credibility. In fact, with the advent of the citizen journalism and the simultaneous decline in trust in all of our major institutions, PR now far surpasses advertising as the most-trusted source of information for most consumer or business purchases. Countless studies report that, next to word-of-mouth advice from friends and family, editorial commentary (usually generated by your friendly, behind-the-scenes PR practitioner) carries far more weight than advertising.

It's not difficult to understand why. Advertising continues to embrace an antiquated, top-down, inside-out way of communicating. It reflects senior management's view on what a consumer or business-to-business buyer should think is important. PR, on the other hand, depends upon listening to the conversation and understanding the who, what, when, where, why and how of engaging in the discussion. Public relations executives excel in storytelling and, typically, present a perceived problem (i.e. childhood obesity) and their client's unique solution (i.e. a new type of fitness equipment designed by, and for, pre-teens).

Mr. Cody is right on target. Lessons learned? Traditional news and ad strategies are in decline. Public relations and the importance of a cogent online message strategy is critical.

Anyone can tell you HOW TO DO IT. But don't you want to pay somebody to ACTUALLY DO IT? This Monty Python video is a very funny commentary on consultants who talk more than they do. Click on the image for a good chuckle.

On a mission this morning, I visited the web sites of 5 public relations agencies and 5 advertising agencies, all of them in Maine. (Most of them are well-known names, located in Bath, Bangor, Portland, South Portland, Augusta and New Gloucester.) Nearly all of them exhibited at least one of these four warning signs:

• The agency does not have a blog.
• If it has a blog, it is updated infrequently or hardly at all.
• The agency doesn’t use video in its blog.
• Blog content is “all over the map” and much of it is inconsequential blather.

Your advertising or PR company tells you, “You need to spend money with us to promote yourself,” but that same company doesn’t promote itself using the tools it’s telling YOU to use. Should you be worried about this? YES!

As an example, one Bangor PR company says this about itself on its web site: “The goal behind (our) social media marketing services is to let your company tap into the two-way conversation naturally happening between you and your customers.”

Yet this company has no online blog. This company posts no online videos. This company is not engaging in a two-way conversation with its customers. Beware of agencies who just throw around buzzwords. Unless the agency that you’re paying to promote your company actually uses social marketing techniques itself, consider the possibility that…wait for it…they don’t know how to do it!

There’s a BIG gap between talking and doing. You should have a keen eye trained on whether your agency really understands new digital tools (Facebook, blogging, Twitter, Linked-In, etc.), or whether it’s just going through the motions.

If you have doubts, you’re not alone. Michael Gass is a talented writer, author of the blog Fuel Lines, and a well-known consultant to traditional advertising agencies. He reported recently on the results of a new study, “Optimizing Marketing Partner Performance And Value In A Digital World.” Among the findings in this study of Chief Marketing Officers (CMO’s): 

• Just 9% of senior marketers believe traditional ad agencies are doing a good job of evolving and extending their service capabilities in the digital age.
• 22% view their agencies as struggling to transition their business models and service offerings.
• 51% see their agencies as playing catch-up with regards to new technology, or acquiring but not integrating digital marketing capabilities.
• 48% of respondents report they are hiring specialized digital marketing solution and service providers to implement new social, mobile, and interactive strategies. Another 47% plan to build internal capabilities and use incumbent agency services less, while an additional 45% are bringing in outside consultants to help set up and structure digital programs.

There’s an old saying that a consultant is someone you hire to borrow your watch and tell you what time it is. Especially when it comes to forming an online strategy for building your brand, make sure that your PR or advertising consultant does more than sound knowledgeable. He or she should actually do what you need them to do, not just tell you what you should be doing.

In any case, this is an excellent article, and does a great job of getting to the bottom of this very public spat. Nice job, Matt.

JUST GOOD PEOPLE: Prime employees Sean Van Praet, Vadim Makhlis, Kathy Prior and John Kennedy were honored to accompany Grahamtastic Connection founder Leslie Morissette (center) to a Business-After-Hours event in Sanford.

Recently I took a drive down to Sanford with several of Ira’s managers. They were attending a Business-After-Hours event hosted by the Sanford/Springvale Chamber of Commerce at the Backstreet Grill.

The guest of honor was Leslie Morissette, co-founder of Grahamtastic Connection, one of Prime’s favorite charities. General manager Vadim Makhlis, speaking on Ira's behalf, spoke glowingly about the charity and Morissette’s dedication.

Grahamtastic Connection provides laptops to seriously ill children. Morissette and Grahamtastic provide free laptops and Internet access to these children, age 18 and under. The “lending library” makes laptops available to kids throughout their medical treatment.

Grahamtastic concentrates on supporting seriously ill children who are having difficulty continuing their education while receiving medical treatment. The child’s social worker (or medical contact) makes a request, and Grahamtastic ships the laptop, which is later returned for other children to use – so that more kids can continue their education by completing homework assignments and connecting with their teachers and classrooms.

Since its relatively small-scale beginnings in 1998, Grahamtastic has donated hundreds of laptops, including a total of 155 in 2011 that brought the grand total to 577 at year’s end.

For more info, visit www.grahamtastic.org, especially if you’d like to find out about their 4th Annual Auction & Dance, which will be on March 3rd from 7 PM to midnight.

My thanks to the gang at Prime for letting me tag along as you honored Leslie Morissette and Grahamtastic Connection. It certainly brightened up the winter.

• 40% of you said, "I see nothing wrong with what she said."
• 40% of you said, "Her comments were ill-advised, especially in light of the Turnpike."
• 20% of you said, "Her comments are outrageous; her sense of entirlement is blatantly arrogants and totally inappropriate." 

Also, through other channels I received this comment from somebody in the housing industry, a source I will keep confidential: "I am in the affordable housing business and have alot of contact with MSHA. While I am not a big fan of Dale M. and think a better leader is neaded, I don't beleive she has abused her power. Sure MSHA could probably be a bit better about spending it's resources, however what people do not realize is that MSHA is much like a bank and really has little direct tax dollars going into it's operations. A complete shake up of how the directer is appointed would be a big mistake and bring politics into play in all their decisions, which would often be in conflict with fiscally sound decisions lenders need to make. Can you say FANNIE FREDIE!!!"