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Recently, I saw Barbara Perino, senior vice president of operations and technology for The Washington Trust Company address a room full of bank vendors. While other speakers painted a gloomy picture of the industry, she provided insights on how vendors should approach her and the bank’s spending priorities in technology and related services in 2009. About Washington Trust: · Founded in 1800 · Based in Westerly, Rhode Island · 17 branches · Four wealth management offices · $2.8 billion in assets (as of September 30, 2008) · Earnings before taxes = 40% from retail, 34% from business banking and 26% from wealth management · Washington Trust Wealth Management (a division of the bank) has approximately $4 billion in assets under administration Perino aligns technology spending with the bank’s strategic goals, only considering projects and/or vendors who can demonstrate either a positive ROI or show an ability to mitigate risks and threats to Washington Trust. She said that her 2009 spe...

I'm testing out the code provided from YouTube for the above video. If you are interested, the video was made using the slideshow feature in iPhoto...then converting it to .mov file. If this works like I hope, I'll be sharing more information with my customers. As background, the Innisbrook Group is a peer network of agency owners (PR and advertising), which meets twice a year. We discuss new business efforts, operational issues, client retention and more. As seen in the video, we also tend to eat well, drink wine and enjoy our time together. If you have questions about the YouTube experiment or Innisbrook, don't hesitate to contact me directly. Scott

There have been a handful of times when clients and the agency have disagreed on writing style. For the record, our style for press releases is very lean and written for the media we are trying to reach. WMA beliefs regarding release style -- * If you can say what you need to say in 150 words instead of 300, use 150; * Avoid buzzwords that make the media wince, such as “revolutionary;” * IF (I repeat, if) you must include “salesy” language, put it in the executive’s quote; * If writing about something complex, do your best to present it in a way even your mom would understand; and * Answer the “so what/who cares?” question in the first paragraph. Don’t make people search for why this news is important. (Hint: if it is not really important, consider not doing it.) So your boss or client is asking you to write and distribute what you know in your gut is not the best material. My rule on working with clients: 1. Recommend something to them 2. Do your best to persuade them to do what...