Gini Dietrich: Agencies, Equality & Bringing Our Best to the PR Industry

07/28/21 • 46 min

Recorded on #WorldPRDay (#WPRD), Kelly and Mary Beth welcome one of the PR industry's most prominent and prolific thought leaders, Gini Dietrich of Spin Sucks, an entire learning platform that Gini founded and her team manages, in service to the industry, including consulting work for fellow agency owners and entrepreneurs.

Gini opens up about her passion points for the industry, on both the positive / uplifting front as well as frustrating sides... and on the latter, including discrimination and misogyny that she has experienced first-hand as a business owner and public speaker.

In this episode of #MsInterPReted, Gini opens up about personal (and shocking) experiences in her own career, and how the up-and-coming generation in PR will not suffer fools gladly or tolerate the discriminatory burdens that have all-too-often persisted in PR and in business / society.

Gini also shares insights about other professional-practice ethics and qualities that hold great potential for the PR industry's advancement, if colleagues will embrace them.

FOLLOW Gini Dietrich and Spin Sucks:
Twitter: @SpinSucks @GiniDietrich
Website: http://spinsucks.com/spin-sucks-community

FOLLOW FLETCHER MARKETING PR:

Discover Fletcher Marketing PR
Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR
Connect with Fletcher Marketing PR on LinkedIn
Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher
Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest

Gini also shares insights about other professional-practice ethics and qualities that hold great potential for the PR industry's advancement, if colleagues will embrace them.

FOLLOW Gini Dietrich and Spin Sucks:
Twitter: @SpinSucks @GiniDietrich
Website: http://spinsucks.com/spin-sucks-community

FOLLOW FLETCHER MARKETING PR:

Discover Fletcher Marketing PR
Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR
Connect with Fletcher Marketing PR on LinkedIn
Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher
Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest

Previous Episode

10+ Years of #SocialMediaDay: The Good, The Bad & The Law

On this #SocialMediaDay2021 episode, Chris McCarty of Knoxville-based law firm Lewis Thomason delves into the larger issues at hand for companies/organizations and individuals alike in managing the good, the bad and the law, when it comes to leveraging the power of social media in productive and legally compliant ways.

Kelly and Mary Beth set the stage by providing a flashback to a November 2020 episode of #MsInterPReted (Social Media & Surveillance Capitalism: Dr. Candace White), and Kelly also shares a recent challenge experienced with a Facebook hacker ... indicative of the power -- much of it unchecked -- that the largest social media companies in particular wield, which can derail any company's ability to do business, at the drop of a hat.

Chris discusses legal implications of these and other challenges, as well as broader issues of free speech and regulatory facts that every PR person and professional communicator should know, in today's dynamic social media environment.
About Chris McCarty of Lewis Thomason, P.C.:

Chris W. McCarty, a shareholder in Lewis Thomason's Knoxville office, practices in the areas of employment law, education law and civil litigation. Chris handles matters before state and federal courts throughout Tennessee, and has argued before the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Chris also presents on employment and education law topics. His articles on those topics have been seen in numerous publications, including HR Magazine, the Tennessee Bar Journal and the Knoxville Business Journal. Chris is approved as a member of the American Arbitration Association’s (AAA) Panel of Employment Arbitrators.

AFFILIATIONS

Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel
DRI – Employment & Labor Law Committee
Society for Human Resource Management
American Bar Association
Knoxville Bar Association
Tennessee Bar Association
National School Boards Association Council of School Attorneys

PROFESSIONAL HONORS AND ACTIVITIES

Tennessee Council of School Board Attorneys, President, 2018-2020
Best Lawyers® 2020 Employment Law – Management “Lawyer of the Year” in Knoxville
Named to The Best Lawyers in America©, Employment Law Management and Education Law
Named a Cityview Magazine Top Attorney
Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel, Elected Member, 2018
Knoxville Bar Foundation, Fellows Program, 2016
Member, American Arbitration Association (AAA) Panel of Employment Arbitrators
Mid-South Super Lawyers® Rising Star, 2015, 2016
Leadership Sevier, 2015
Knoxville Zoo, Circle of Friends Leadership Council, 2015
Nucleus Knoxville, President, 2014
“40 Under 40”, Knoxville Business Journal, 2013
Tennessee Bar Association Leadership Law, 2012
Leadership Tomorrow Sevier, 2010
Tennessee Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, President’s Award, 2009
Introduction Knoxville, 2007
Knoxville Bar Association, Publications Committee

FOLLOW Chris McCarty and Lewis Thomason:
Twitter: @LewisThomasonTN
LinkedIn: Lewis Thomason / LinkedIn and Chris McCarty / LinkedIn
Website: https://www.lewisthomason.com/

FOLLOW FLETCHER MARKETING PR:

Discover Fletcher Marketing PR
Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on Twitter: @FletcherPR
Connect with Fletcher Marketing PR on LinkedIn
Follow Kelly Fletcher on Twitter: @KDfletcher
Follow Mary Beth West on Twitter: @marybethwest

Next Episode

Susan Hart: PRSA, #PRethics and the Urgency of Accountability

In this episode during PRSA's #EthicsMonth, Mary Beth West interviews close colleague Susan Hart -- a past president of the PRSA Nashville Chapter, a past PRSA Nashville Chapter Hercules Award honoree, and a now-former / resigned PRSA College of Fellows member.

Susan voluntarily discontinued her 35-year membership in PRSA in 2018, in disgust with PRSA's National leadership cultural shift, after what she describes as "one of the most stressful experiences of (her) life" at the hands of PRSA National leadership, who infamously opposed ethics-driven bylaw reforms -- after secretly reversing course from prior assurances that measures would be supported.
In this interview, Susan discusses:

Accountability as the essential crux of what any leadership team must offer as a non-negotiable deliverable of its own cultural mindset
How leadership quickly falls down a slippery slope and point-of-no-return, when national leaders fail to conduct due diligence
"Say-do" disconnects -- when organizational mission and stated principles no longer match leadership behaviors
What the modus-operandi of "Operation Incompetence" entails with an escalating lack of financial transparency
How the good work of PRSA's local-level chapters is overshadowed and undermined when the national organizational leadership has entrenched unethical and unaccountable practices
Why curiosity by members is important and should not be demonized ... and why it's an ethical red-flag when any organizational leadership "kills the messenger" and instills fear of retaliation among a membership who become too fearful to ask valid questions.