Parry Headrick

Crackle PR

Crackle Communications is a tech public relations agency that works with good companies only. We know communications, social media, branding and creative services cold. We’re a remote-first PR agency built for now, with deep experience connecting stories to their audiences. Warning: we’re transparent, picky and fearless.

Founder 

March Communications

I ran the marketing, communications and new business functions for award-winning PR agency March Communications. With offices in Boston and Chicago, March is an integrated tech PR firm that works with innovative brands determined to change their respective industries for the better.

Senior Vice President of Marketing & Communications

Matter Communications

At Matter, I was charged with telling the company's unique PR and social media story via traditional marketing and public relations channels, as well as via an array of social media platforms. I'm also a driving force in attracting new business via content marketing, and working closely with all teams and agency principals throughout the pitching process at this rapidly growing PR firm north of Boston, with offices in Providence, RI, Portland, OR, and Boulder CO.

I wholly subscribe to Matter's philosophy: "Do the right thing." That means ensuring client delight, stoking staff engagement and doing good works in the local community. This mantra has resulted in the company growing year-over-year for the past several years. Cool.

Vice President of Marketing & Communications

SHIFT Communications

I led the Agency's coast-to-coast marketing & public relations efforts to stimulate brand awareness, leverage client successes, and gain significant market share nationally.

I was also a creative force in attracting and winning new business across a broad cross section of consumer and technology accounts. My high-level public relations and social media ideas compelled prospects to choose SHIFT.

Client experience: AOL, Sony Online entertainment, Logitech, Club Med, Bing, Virgin Mobile, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, H&R Block, Akamai, Nuance, Yelp, Novell, WebTrends, Wells Fargo, Oakley Sunglasses, Quiznos, etc.

I've done it all: journalism, PR, community manager, marketing and sales. Fluent in all things social media.

Vice President Marketing

Director of Sales and Marketing

Sterling Hager

I performed account management for a number of Boston and silicon valley technology companies.

Account Manager

Waterbury Republican-American

I was a general assignment reporter covering human interest stories, politics and current events. My byline regularly appeared on page one of this Pulitzer Prize -winning newspaper.

General Assignment Reporter

Founder at Crackle PR ⚡️Text me if you need tech PR: 415.246.8486

I am the founder of Crackle PR, a public relations agency that works with good companies only. With over 20 years of experience in the PR industry, I have led marketing, communications, and new business functions for award-winning PR firms, serving clients in the B2B and consumer sectors. I have a passion for connecting stories to their audiences, using communications, social media, branding, and creative services.

As a PR agency leader, I am transparent, picky, and fearless. I do the right thing for my clients, my team, and my community. I am a big idea guy, a stellar writer and content creator, and a media trainer and counsel to the C-Suite. I am always looking for new challenges, opportunities, and collaborations in the tech PR space. Text me if you need tech PR: 415.246.8486.

💥 DON’T: hire a PR agency if you don’t have anyone internally able to focus on it. 

DO: hire an agency when you prioritize PR as a key business driver. 

This is the way ✊

👇

Founder at Crackle PR 🎙️ Text me for tech PR: 415.246.8486

💥 Just downloaded Muck Rack’s “What is AI Reading?” report. 

If you’re in comms, you need these insights. 👇

😮 Non-paid media accounts for 94% of links cited by AI

😮 82% of links cited by LLMs come from *earned media*

In other words, PR isn’t a nice to have in the age of AI. 

It’s a straight-up performance channel. 

Vroom vroom 

🏎️💨

This is the way ✊

Josh Steimle

MWI, a marketing agency, is the first "real" business I started, way back in 1999. Today, MWI has offices on multiple continents and works with clients like Marriott, Sony, LG, Hotels.com, and Orangetheory Fitness. 

MWI is actually more than a single company, it's a collection of marketing agencies. We grow by diversifying ourselves across geographies, services, and industries. 

Geography: We're always interested in opening or acquiring offices in new locations. If you currently run a marketing agency and want to be part of the MWI network, please reach out.

Services: We started out as a web development agency but then moved into services like SEO, paid search, social, PR, content, and video. We start subsidiary agencies focused on these services, while MWI HQ acts as the coordinating hub for clients who need multiple services. If you run a firm that focuses on a particular marketing service and are interesting in partnering with us, I'd love to talk.

Industries: We launch subsidiary marketing agencies that focus on niche industries such as self storage, dentists, hospitals, and hospitality. If you have a marketing agency that focuses on a particular industry and would like to discuss a potential acquisition, let me know.

For more info visit www.mwi.com.

Founder

Pando Partners

It took me over 20 years to figure out why I'm an entrepreneur. I used to think I wanted money, or stuff, or for people to see me as successful. But chasing all of that left me empty, and it didn't seem to work out well business-wise, either.

Instead, what seemed to align everything in my business and personal life was a desire to help others progress, to see them maximize their potential. I started Pando Partners as a way to create businesses as vehicles to help people get unstuck and keep learning and growing.

Of course, we care about money—a business can't survive without profits, just like a person can't survive without food. Money matters like food matters. But if all you live for is to eat, and all your business exists for is to make money, what kind of existence is that?

At Pando, our first core value is people. Our other core values are purpose, abundance, partnership, and stewardship. Through Pando's multi-business system (MBS), I can partner with great experts, leaders, and creators to find unlimited opportunities. At other companies, you compete against your own team to move up the corporate ladder. At Pando, there is no limit to the number of companies we can create, which encourages collaboration and loyalty. 

The Pando plan involved two phases. Phase I is to create several self-managing businesses related to marketing and promotion. During Phase II, we'll use those companies to help larger, more scalable companies grow quickly.

Interested in joining the team? Shoot me a message.

Published Author

Want 1-1 book coaching? Contact me at josh@publishedauthor.com. Published Author helps entrepreneurs write, publish, and leverage business books to grow their businesses.

Canvas PR

In 2013, I published my first article in a major publication (FastCo). Then I was invited to write a column for Forbes. Then I got into Entrepreneur, Insider, Fortune, TIME, Mashable, Techcrunch, and ultimately I wrote hundreds of articles for more than two-dozen publications.

However, the more I wrote and published articles, the more I got on the radar of PR firms. At first, it was just a few pitches each month. Then it was dozens, then hundreds, and some months I'm pretty sure it neared 1,000 pitches. 

The pitches came from all types of PR firms, including big NYC PR firms, and yet they were all the same. "Hey, I've got big time CEO so and so available, would you like to talk to them?" It was almost like every PR firm gave their people the same "How to Pitch PR" book that included a single template which everyone copied and then mass-emailed to everyone they could find on MuckRack.

I knew there had to be a better way.

I looked at the pitches I actually read, the ones that were customized so I knew they were only sent to me and no one else. I saw how they reached out to me because they knew what I wrote about, and had a client they thought would fit well with my swim lane. And they didn't just say, "Hey, I've got so and so!" they would also give me ideas for headlines and offer to help me put together the article by gathering data, quotes, other interviews (even though not clients), etc.

Actually, no one ever pitched me that way, I only wished they would.

We started offering PR services through my marketing agency, MWI, using this type of pitch, but then we launched Canvas PR as a standalone agency. Because of our process and the relationships we've developed, we are able to offer our clients guaranteed PR placements for a flat fee. Finally, there's accountability in PR.

If you're interested in learning more, reach out to Logan Derrick at logan@canvaspr.com.

Harvard Business School

Since 2007 I've harbored an interest in doing academic research, primarily on the intersection of government policy with entrepreneurship/startup hubs globally. I've done light work with a number of professors, but to get more hands-on experience I've taken on contract work at HBS writing case studies.

Research Assistant

BlueMethod

While writing for Forbes circa 2014, I began testing whether my articles got more attention on Forbes.com or LinkedIn, and found that LinkedIn did 10x as much for me when it came to connecting with the right people and spreading my message.

The more I experimented with LinkedIn, the more I saw it as a powerful platform for content marketing and personal branding. I began providing LinkedIn services to others, helping them optimize their profiles, add lots of high-quality connections, and create compelling content, which led to the founding of BlueMethod, an agency that provides these services to clients at scale.

AuthorVoice

Should every business book author also host a podcast? Maybe not, but at least 100,000 of them should, so we launched AuthorVoice to serve this niche audience. We work exclusively with nonfiction, business book authors to help them launch audio and video podcast shows to promote their book, connect with collaborators, and grow their audience.

7 Systems

I believe most people in the world are good and if I can help people become more influential, they'll use that influence to make the world a better place. That's the "why" that led me to create 7 Systems, a publishing, training, and events company that helps clients increase their influence using The 7 Systems of Influence framework.

The 7 Systems framework is used by executives, entrepreneurs, educators, marketing and PR professionals, parents, and government leaders to zero in on their objectives, identify their ideal audience, and create compelling content that moves their audience to action.

Freelance Writer

I'm the author of Chief Marketing Officers at Work, 60 Days to LinkedIn Mastery, The 7 Systems of Influence, and I've written over 300 articles for print and online publications including Forbes, Fortune, Mashable, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, TechinAsia, TIME, Entrepreneur, CMO.com, Fast Company, ClickZ, CBS, Fox Small Business, Asia Trail Magazine, and The Salt Lake Tribune. 

Chief Marketing Officers at Work (http://amzn.to/2lK6t4q) contains 29 exclusive, in-depth interviews with chief marketing officers like Jeff Jones of Target, Linda Boff of GE, Brian Kenny of the Harvard Business School, Trish Mueller of The Home Depot, and Seth Farbman of Spotify.

Writer/Author

Entrepreneur Media

I always have and always will see myself as an entrepreneur, which is why I loved writing for Entrepreneur Magazine. It's where I connect with my tribe. Check out my articles about entrepreneurship, marketing, and personal influence at https://www.entrepreneur.com/author/joshua-steimle.

Contributing Writer

WSJ & USA Today bestselling author. Book coach, speaker, multi-entrepreneur. I'm here to maximize human potential.

I love starting businesses but I'm not good at running them, so I find partners who love running and growing businesses but don't love the risk of starting them. This allowed me to create Pando Partners, a holding company where I can do what I truly love, which is to start businesses, see them succeed, and see individuals learn and grow within those businesses as they maximize their potential. Right now, my primary project is MWI, the marketing agency I started in 1999. I recently bought out my partners there after 10 years and find myself back in the driver seat. However, there are a lot of other projects up and running or in early stages.

If you're interested in partnering with me, I am currently looking for partners in the following spaces:

- Self storage
- Public relations
- Marketing
- Book coaching
- Web and app development
- Design
- Streetwear/fashion
- Retail/online retail
- Education

I'm a husband, father, skater, Dinosaur Jr. fan, political news junkie, ultra trail runner, triathlete, adoptive parent and active advocate for adoption, aspiring academic researcher, and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Originally from LA, I lived in Utah from '98-'13, then moved to Hong Kong, and then to Shenzhen, China in 2016. In Jan, 2019, I moved to Boston, where my family and I lived on a farm with 21 horses, 3 guinea pigs, and 1 dog, before moving to Arizona in 2021, without the horses. 😥

I would LOVE to connect with everyone, but LinkedIn maxes out accounts at 30K. Sorry, it's not you, it's me (actually, let's blame it on LinkedIn). But please click that "Follow" button above so we can stay in touch!

If you have employees, think of each one and ask, "How would I react if they came in and told me they were quitting?"

"Whew, thank you!" = C player
"Dang...oh well, we'll find someone else." = B player
"What?! No! No, no, no, no...NO!" = A player

Fire your C players.

Improve or fire your B players.

You better make sure you keep your A players.

Now do the experiment again with your clients or customers (or customer personas). How would you react if a specific client, or a type of customer, quit?

"Whew, thank you!" = Toxic customer
"Dang...oh well, we'll find others." = Not ideal customer
"What? No!" = Ideal customer

Fire your toxic customers.

Turn your non-ideal clients or customers into the ideal, or fire them.

Double down on your ideal customer(s).

Now do the experiment one more time...How would your ideal clients or customers react if you told them you were quitting?

"Good riddance!" = You've got big problems
"Oh well, we'll find someone else." = You've still got problems
"Noooo! We can't live without you!" = Keep up the good work, but still look for ways to do better.

Agency founder. Marketing for multi-location businesses (storage, hospitals, hotels, gyms, etc.). Maximizing human potential via entrepreneurship. WSJ + USA Today bestselling author. Trail runner. Skater. Husband. Dad.

AI produces trash. Smart humans using AI are producing masterpieces. Don't trash AI. It's a losing battle. 

"People don't want to watch movies where people talk." 

"Nobody wants to watch movies at home." 

"Nobody wants to order groceries online." 

"Nobody wants restaurant food at home." 

"People like working with travel agents." 

"People want to hold a book and read it, not listen to it." 

"I'm not putting my credit card info into a website." 

"Nobody wants their banking info online." 

"Wait, a Nigerian prince wants to send me $17M...?!" 🤦‍♂️

"Nobody will read a book written by AI." 

"Nobody will watch a movie made by AI." 

Don't fear the future. Don't fight it. Embrace it. Push it even faster.

LinkedIn feels like a nonstop scroll of ads. I struggle to remember what it was like before this, but I know it was better.

I hate what AI has done to the emdash. I used the m-- all the time before AI! Now I'm all self-conscious about it.

Digital marketing & content expert. Wall Street Journal bestselling author. Keynote speaker. Writer.

Good people of LinkedIn! >> Why do people now think Ye Olde Em Dash is a sign of AI writing?

It's been around for roughly 400 years—long before Clippy, autocorrect, neural networks, or anyone imagined punctuation could enrage a mob. It's vintage!

So why are people now patrolling the streets of LinkedIn with torches and pitchforks, rounding up em dashes like it’s CSI: Grammar Unit?

>> Because of a perfect storm of style, superstition, and machine mimicry.

AI models love the em dash... because *humans* do.

Large language models are trained on millions of human-written sentences. (Mostly stolen, it must be said.)

And we modern writers use em dashes a lot. They mimic our conversational, emotional, sometimes delightfully digressive voice—the kind that wanders, like it's doing right here—before it plops its peach 🍑 into a seat and parks itself on the page.

So when AI learned to “sound human,” it slipped on our favorite cardigan: the em dash.

When people started noticing dashes popping up everywhere in ChatGPT writing... I  mean, "outputs"... they mistook the symptom for the cause.

Maybe before you accuse anyone of “writing like AI,” ask yourself:

Who’s actually robotic ... the writer using rhythm and nuance?
Or the reader... following a rulebook?

* * *

Here's why this matters at all: Punctuation isn’t about grammar.

It’s a kind of wingman for your words—it helps them come alive in another’s mind.

Writing, like punctuation, is less about rules and more about listening for the rhythm and the beats beneath the words. It’s taste, timing, feeling... and the beautiful mess of being unmistakably human.

Which is all to say... ***Justice! For! Em Dashes!***
 
Notice how em dashes work—whether you're reading them here, on LinkedIn, on a tote bag, in a poem. rhythm of writing—the beats beneath the words.
 
Said another way:
 
You can tell a lot about a writer by how they use an em dash.
You can tell even more by whether they're afraid to.
 
It's time for us writers to reclaim what's ours! It's time to BE FEARLESS. 

Who's with me?

P.S. Should we actually produce this rallying cry of a t-shirt? Y or N. 

P.P.S. Print On Demand companies: Anyone wanna help? 👕

P.P.P.S. Thanks for reading this far. #WritingCommunity #AI #JusticeForEmDashes #ContentWriting

If you could change 3 things to make LinkedIn better, what would they be?

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The Battle

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Josh Steimle

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