The Crystal Awards honors the best marketing work in the Houston region and is one of the largest and most prestigious marketing awards in the country. Finalists in 55 categories will be honored at the Crystal Awards gala on May 26th, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency in Downtown Houston.

Click here for press release.

About you:
You’re an experienced A-player and do great work you love. You’re a well-rounded media and public relations and marketing talent able to counsel clients about traditional communications as well as emerging communication channels, social media, SEO, and mobile messaging. Your clients respect your counsel because you produce great ideas with great results on budget and on time. Your team members respect you for your mentorship and project management ability. You have varied industry experience and value a work environment that respects you and your personal life and time. You’re looking for a career opportunity to create a balanced life where you excel and thrive professionally and personally.

About us:
We’re a fast-growing, 20-year-old Houston marketing public relations agency with likeable clients. Both private and publicly traded, our clients are in real estate, commercial construction, manufacturing, e-commerce, traditional and alternative energy and professional services. We’re looking for a client team leader for our all-A-player team to develop strategies, counsel clients and implement programs ranging from branding initiatives and marketing, to media relations, social media, and crisis response when needed. We prefer agency-experience but always love a positive, experienced, sharp individual who shares our passion for great work with great people. We offer competitive pay, excellent benefits and a politic-free work environment. Interested? Introduce yourself with your resume at ghambrick@wardcc.com. We’d love to meet you.

Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Public Relations, Communications, Journalism or Marketing

Position: Full-Time

Location: Houston/Bellaire Area

Benefits: Competitive Benefits including: IRA with matching contribution program, paid vacation, health/dental insurance, disability insurance

Whether we’re aware of them or not, our lives are filled everyday with the practice of tradition. The marriage of a loved one, the 7th inning stretch during baseball games and gathering with the entire family to look at lighted houses on Christmas Eve are all important traditions that celebrate an important time in history. Holding strong to these traditions, both personally and professionally, creates a powerful link to the past and an excellent foundation for the future.

Recently, a WardCC client celebrated their centennial anniversary and decided to bring back the long-lost tradition of placing cornerstones and time capsules within their building projects. Shortly thereafter, they discovered the founder of the company, a Mason, had participated in this tradition and helped to place a time capsule within the cornerstone of an old downtown building, some 83 years earlier. Friends and family of the company and the Masons gathered to open the time capsule, discovering documentation inside that gave them additional insight to their pasts. This event only reaffirmed the steps the company planned on taking – they too wanted their building clients and partners to experience the excitement and sense of purpose they shared during the placement of the cornerstone and the opening of the time capsule.

Beginning this tradition anew gives reason for friends and family to gather to witness the cornerstone inception and to celebrate its ending. We create tradition in our everyday lives – such as having Thursday night game night with the family, or Hawaiian shirt day in the office every Friday – to remind ourselves that the reason we come together is to build camaraderie, honor personal or professional values and to commemorate an occasion.

This past weekend, children of all ages took to the streets wearing masks and costumes as we celebrated the tradition of Halloween in our country, an event which millions of people look forward to every year. In a society dominated by multiple viewpoints and the effectiveness of communications, a tradition such as this is a common denominator and has the capability to be shared by everyone.

Consider how important your traditions and rituals are to you and to the others that may participate in them. Often, our traditions are the anchors of our day, week, month or year, lending regularity to an otherwise unpredictable time period. Perhaps you can establish new meaning and build better relationships by creating a tradition of your own, or better honoring those that already exist.

Can you recall the last time you were wowed by great service? Whether it was the service technician who went the extra mile to ensure your car was ready in under 30 minutes, or it was the retail associate who called a few other stores across town on your behalf to find that special size you absolutely needed – it’s hard to come across those who seem to care about their jobs or much less – YOU.

How great or how poorly employees perform for your target audiences reflect directly on your company and can make or break your brand. More often than not, people remember bad experiences– and what’s worse, bad service becomes viral when they tell an average of 10 of their closest friends and family about the poor service they received.

In an age where service has become rather informal and, at times, impersonal, it helps to refocus on the basic principles that help us relate to one another. As I reflect on some of my best service encounters, I put forth the five tenets of great service:

1. Show Respect – It really is the golden rule – treat others how you want to be treated. And, if you are not so good to yourself, treat them how you would want your best loved one treated.
2. Demonstrate Initiative – If answers are not intuitive or the product is not right there on the shelf – it is easy to say “I don’t know.” or “We don’t carry that.” What stands out is when you take a little time to investigate or find an alternate solution. Next time, try “Let me find out for you!”
3. Show empathy – Think about what the other person is going through. With company’s laying off, many employees have taken on more than their fair share of work. In general, many people are feeling the pinch of a tight economy. Would it hurt your profit margin to give them a one-time credit or discount? People remember the little things and will continue to patron you because you cared about them when times were not all so good.
4. Have Integrity – Simply put, take pride in your work product and service. Dot your “I’s” and cross your “T’s.”
5. Be Willing To Compromise – The rules of business are ever-changing so be willing to give a little. Every situation is different – cookie-cutter practices do not work.

The truth is, the above attributes can be applied to all aspects of one’s life to hone great relationships with your customers, employer, spouse or friends. Finally, if you find it hard to incorporate all of the service attributes into the way you do business, just remember – the customer is always right.

Take a look at the event.

There’s a saying that if you need help identifying what your priorities are, just look at your bank statement. The same holds true with relationships, if you think about it. An investment in a relationship is an ongoing process, and those relationships where we are more vested tend to be stronger, more successful. This is in both personal and professional arenas.

So what if we were to regard our relationships like we do our bank accounts? Could we recognize how healthy our relationship accounts are? I think so.


Let’s consider the number of “deposits” we make in a given relationship. Time spent listening, getting to know each other and understanding where the other is coming from are deposits that help build a strong foundation for a steady relationship. On the contrary, how often we make deposits and the size of withdrawals – or times when words or actions cause damage – can greatly influence the success of a relationship too.


Regardless, one thing is certain when it comes to relationships: deposits better outweigh the withdrawals if a relationship is to weather an unexpected surprise or stressful situation. Wouldn’t it be nice to get an automated notice that a relationship account is running low on funds? Instead, we must make certain to communicate the needs and expectations necessary to protect the mutual investment we have in relationships we share.


As a communications professional, it’s important to take stock of our relationships on a regular basis and do what’s necessary to build resilient relationships. Whether we are interfacing with a client, the media, a client’s customer/consumer, or a vendor, time spent nurturing relationships pays the dividends.

Just write a comment below if you have any questions. We’re happy to help!

(and don’t forget to become a fan of Ward CC!)

Step One: Click on “Friends” at the top and then “Create New List”




Step Two: Select those that you would like alternative privacy setting for, namely work associates. When you have selected everyone, enter a name in the top field and click on “create list.” You can make as many lists as you would like to specify what numerous different groupings of people can see and have access.




Step Three: Go to Settings/Privacy Settings




Step Four: Think about what you want to be public to all friends and what you want to be hidden. Click on the one that you want to edit and click on customize from the drop-down menu.




Step Five: In the “except these people” box, type in the name of the list(s) that you created that should NOT be able to see this information. Press Okay.

You can do this for each privacy setting on Facebook.




Step Six: Test your work! See how someone in your list can see your profile. At the top, where is says “See how a friend sees your profile” enter in a name from someone in your list and press enter




As long as this box is at the top of the screen, this is how that Facebook friend sees your profile.




Step Seven: You can also make sure that only certain people can see any information. If any setting is set to “everyone” then this means that people that are not on Facebook and not in your networks can see all of you information. While this is GREAT for a corporate Facebook account, I do not recommend that anyone has all of their information public for all eyes. At the very least, allow your network and friends to see this (I only allow my friends without the “work” tag to see everything- and I put a lot of people into that “work” category).

Tomorrow, August 13th, our very own Deborah Buks will be speaking at the Marketing in the Oilfield Conference.

She is speaking on the topic of “Leveraging Social Media” and how energy industry decision makers use the social digital era to reach out to their clients and colleagues.

Stay tuned in on Twitter as we will be live tweeting from the event.

Deborah will be joined by some great leaders in the industry..

David Peck, Social Media Strategist, LSF Interactive
Tommy Lyles, Communications Manager, Chevron Energy Technology Company
Toby Brown, Marketing and Knowledge Management, Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.

Are you following our tweets? We are @WardCC.