As any public relations practitioner will attest to, having a crisis plan in place is essential to any organization successfully landing on its feet after encountering unexpected hurdles. We at Nuffer, Smith, Tucker, take proactive crisis planning very seriously, as was displayed during our building’s recent fire drill.

Our office is perched at the top of a 18-story building in downtown San Diego. Because of our height, we are able to enjoy a view of San Diego Bay’s sparkling waters, the majestic Coronado Bridge and even Padres’ PETCO Park. Unfortunately, it also means we endure walking down 18 stories during the annual fire drill.

Price Adams and Michelle Livermore have been designated as the fire marshals of our floor and stay up to speed on safety protocol by attending regular training sessions. When the alarm sounded throughout the building, Price and Michelle swung into action by putting on their bright orange vests and ushering us all to the stairwell.

Thanks to the guidance of our fearless leaders, all team members quickly made it to safety on the sidewalk. In fact, building administration awarded NST for our efficiency at evacuating in a timely manner (the hustle of some staff members may have been motivated by a client conference call taking place during the drill). Our prize was a backpack full of emergency supplies, making NST that much more prepared for handling a crisis situation.

NST staff members makes it safely to the meeting destination.

At one point or another you may have heard someone say, “The problem in San Diego is that we have no leadership.” Do you agree?

For Mary Walshok, associate vice chancellor of extended studies at UCSD,  the answer is a strong “no.” Walshok recently helped welcome LEAD San Diego’s 2012 IMPACT class.  And while her welcome was short and sweet (about 10 minutes), her words were thought provoking, prompting me — and presumably others in the class — to wonder: what is the role of “leaders” today? Further, what does “leadership” in the future look like?

Walshok advocated that when you have diversity, you have multiple centers of leadership.

“The challenge then becomes, mobilizing these multiple centers of leadership around common causes,” said Walshok, who went on to offer three things needed for leadership.

First, people need to know how and where to access knowledge. Secondly, leaders need to network, including bridging the gap between those individuals with a hyper-local focus, i.e. localites and those who are more cosmopolitan, or global. Lastly, Walshok argues that leaders must know how to harvest the skills of others and empower them.

LEAD San Diego seeks to advance the quality of life in San Diego through a growing network of capable and engaged civic leaders. What does being a leader mean to you? And what skills do you think are needed to demonstrate great leadership?

At the recent Wine Wednesday networking event NST hosted with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, we asked attendees to tell us their burning social media questions.  Now, as a regular feature on our blog, we are going to answer these questions, in addition to any other social media related questions that get thrown our way.  Got a question for us?  Feel free to leave it in the comments below, send us an email or post it on our Facebook wall. Be sure to check back soon, because your question could be the next one to be answered.

Our first question comes from Kari: Do you recommend a customized welcome tab for Facebook Pages?

Answer: Yes, we recommend not only creating a customized welcome tab, but also creating other customized tabs and content for a brand or organization’s Facebook page.  With more than 800 million active users on Facebook, a customized tab will encourage people to “like” your brand’s page and help you stand out among the other pages.  A customized tab also allows you to highlight new promotions or activities (such as a contest), and gives your Facebook fans another reason to visit your page.  Think of customized tabs as a way to showcase your brand’s elevator speech online and have some fun in the process.

Here are some examples of customized tabs created by NST:

WD-40

Space Bag

Ocean Mist Farms

San Diego has been abuzz this week celebrating SDSU Homecoming. We decided to do a little celebrating of our own at Nuffer, Smith, Tucker, marking our first ever College Day. Today, employees are sporting their collegiate t-shirts and alma mater’s colors and we realized something … NST’s Aztec pride “runs deep!”

As San Diego’s oldest public relations firm, having opened our doors more than three decades ago, it’s no surprise we have a deep connection to San Diego State University. With seven SDSU alumni currently on staff and NST president Bill Trumpfheller, a two-time SDSU Alumni Association past president and current board member, we certainly bleed red and black!

Go Aztecs! Beat TCU!

By Karen Ross and Kerry Tucker

A focus in many food policy discussions is the development of a substantial food system to feed a hungry world, and the trends we’re seeing internationally show there is an urgent need. Food has become a geopolitical hot potato this year. The uprisings in the Middle East and Africa reaffirm that food is a basic building block for peace, harmony and, of course, survival.

An article this year in the publication Foreign Policy spotlighted a world population that continues to explode, while farm production struggles to keep pace. As a result, world food prices are at an all-time high, according to the U.N. Food Price Index. Every day, there are nearly 220,000 new mouths to feed on the planet—a staggering number. By 2050, it is believed the world must double food production, while using fewer natural resources. All of this brings challenges and opportunities for California agriculture.

New, affluent sectors in countries around the world are on a growth spurt for the foreseeable future, with an anticipated growing demand for the type of products California farmers produce: animal proteins and specialty crops. The leading countries with emerging affluent sectors include China, India, Brazil, Korea and Mexico.

According to the Agricultural Issues Center at the University of California, Davis, China will more than triple its per capita income by 2030, from $2,802 to $10,718. This kind of wealth generation tends to result in first-step dietary adjustments that include more consumption of meat, dairy products, fruits, vegetables and nuts.

India’s numbers start smaller, from $965 per capita last year to $3,309 in 2030, but its population will continue to grow by 1 percent per year long after China’s population peaks in about 2030, according to Daniel Sumner, director of the AIC. As a result, India’s population will stay young and energetic for years to come, with a growth rate that could soon overtake China.

The food industry is well aware of these numbers. Companies like Nestlé, Procter and Gamble, Unilever, Heinz and Walmart have these countries in their sights. The food they’ll provide could easily be produced in California.

Because they’re located in one of only five regions on Earth capable of large-scale production of Mediterranean specialty crops, California farmers and ranchers are well positioned to prosper in the international marketplace.

Also working to the state’s advantage is the health profile of its product line. The 2011 Food Foresight trend report shows concern for obesity and diabetes rising worldwide. Add the rising cost of health care to the discussion and it’s bound to move nutrition and disease prevention center-stage in the health care debate, spotlighting foods thought to protect against the development of chronic disease—foods that are produced in California. This opportunity exists for all types of the state’s farmers and ranchers.

California agriculture is incredibly diverse: large farms and small, plants and animals, food and fiber, organic, conventional and biotech. It includes urban farmers, farmworkers and minority farmers. This diversity makes California agriculture stronger and more successful.

There is keen consumer interest in the thriving trend of local, regional food systems—the growth of farmers markets, CSAs and other direct-to-consumer marketing opportunities that are shortening the distance between eaters and farmers. This is the new and exciting frontier in our domestic markets; it presents opportunities for collaboration in the public policy arena. To encourage local farming, we must preserve farmland and maintain access to affordable water. There are enormous possibilities for agriculture if it works together to build new coalitions.

Yet there is tension in the search for common ground. Some consumer and stakeholder perceptions—small farms are good, “Big Ag” is bad—can get in the way of the cooperation required to meet the food demands of the future. On the other hand, belittling small, organic farms as unable to address global food security issues, or the demonization of one agricultural segment by another (“My way of farming is better than yours”) is not constructive. Regardless of size or farming practices, we need a continuum of farms and ranches operating as productively as possible while protecting our precious natural resources and the environment. There is truly a place for all in California agriculture.

One way to build coalitions is Ag Vision, a program spearheaded by the California State Board of Food and Agriculture to bring together diverse stakeholders who share a common goal: the long-term viability of California agriculture. Ag Vision is not the only answer but it is a good beginning, because this diverse group working with farmers and ranchers has spent more than two years focusing on what they could agree on, rather than fight over their differences.

This process will continue, with the goal being an agricultural system working harmoniously to meet the international opportunities and challenges ahead. The co-chairs of this effort are board member Luawanna Hallstrom and American Farmland Trust’s Ralph Grossi, who, along with board president Craig McNamara, would enthusiastically welcome your participation. For more information, see www.cdfa.ca.gov/agvision/.

We also urge you to join us in planning for the next farm bill. It is essential that we receive input from stakeholders about California’s priorities. This is the national food policy discussion—right now—and the farm bill will set the agenda. So let’s get together as one voice and set the tone for a future of collaboration.

(Karen Ross is secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Kerry Tucker is chief executive officer of the public relations consulting firm Nuffer, Smith and Tucker, and a member of the State Board of Food and Agriculture.)

Credit to California Farm Bureau Federation.

Recently, I was driving home from a meeting in Los Angeles with a colleague, when she asked me (somewhat out of the blue) what I thought her strengths and weaknesses are.  Put on the spot, I considered her question and it struck me that perhaps one of her biggest strengths was the fact that she was asking me this question at all.

Lao Tzu once said: “He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” The concept of self awareness – and its relationship to great leadership – was the crux of a recent seminar as part of LEAD San Diego’s 2012 IMPACT class.

“Leadership development is a lifelong journey,” said George Reed, University of San Diego professor, who presented to the LEAD cohort of 60 participants.

Reed offered the class tools to help assess their personality and change leadership style, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which measures psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions, and the Change Style Indicator, which measures preferred styles in approaching and dealing with change.  These are just a few of the tools offered to help leaders become more self aware, and while the results can be interesting, the real value of these tests is not in the results themselves, but in what you do with them.

Reed argues that results shouldn’t be used to describe your personality “type,” but rather results should be used to help guide your actions – even if that makes you uncomfortable.

“Like right-handedness or left-handedness, personality is hard wired … Leaders must work against their preferences all the time,” said Reed.

I walked away knowing that not only am I a “ISTJ” (preferences toward Introversion, Sensing, Thinking and Judging) on the Myers-Briggs scale, but also – and more importantly – I was more self aware and curious about others who I interact with both professionally and personality.  While every assessment and tool has its flaws, each can also provide good insight to help inspire improved leadership, which is a principle at the core of LEAD San Diego.

Updated 10/4.