#mike farber

[rickwilliamspga]

REM = Junior Golf Tournaments

Chapter 2 of “Music and Bands that Remid Me of Friends”.  Mike Farber, I think of you every time I hear an REM song, especially anything off  the first 3 albums. Thank you for your friendship over all these years.  Fun fact – Woodmont Country Club is a client of mine! I vividly recall our exit from the club in 1985 (?) with “Don’t Go Back to Rockville” blaring from your car. 

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[ispyafamousface]

Holy crap, Mike from Homeland was Shane Oman (you know, of hooking-up-with-Regina-George-in-the-project-room-above-the-auditorium fame) in Mean Girls.  

See the rest at Where The Guys From "Mean Girls" Are Now on Buzzfeed. 

[mgaiss]

The Week Ahead

In terms of group activities this week, the Menlo Park teams will kick off the week with a group gathering (+ ice cream) to discuss areas of need with Highland staff and each other.  Like we did in Palo Alto earlier in June, on Tuesday east coast teams head over to IDEO in Cambridge to discuss "Design Thinking for Startups" with Colin Raney. As PR continues to become more important for teams, Mike Farber of LaunchSquad will be coming in on Thursday to discuss that topic and offer advice on how to approach given the resource constrained nature of teams at this stage.  Wrapping up the week, Karen Donoghue of Human Logic will be holding her second “User Experience Office Hours” for teams.

[summerhighland]

Takeaways from "PR for Startups"

The below recap on Mike Farber's session is courtesy of Arye Barnehama and Laura Berman of Axio:

One of my favorite quotes has always been, "When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say that it happened naturally," spoken by Lao Tse. This is the job of Mike Farber, the CEO of LaunchSquad, a "full-service" PR firm. Mike, a JD, directs high-growth startups from behind the scenes to sculpt their stories for the public to read, listen to, watch, and be inspired by. 

The initial question of the Socratic-style dialogue with Mike began with a basic question of "what is…", in this case, "What is PR?” The startups in the room pondered, gave answers based off what we've read, experienced, and been taught about PR. Soon, however, Mike made the heart of the answer blatantly simple. PR is whom you surround yourself with. It's a form of validation, a source of credibility, a stamp of approval. It almost reminds me of schoolyard rules. At school, your reputation is based upon whom you hang out with. It is part of human nature to discuss the lives of others, but what people say about you is largely affected by whether you hang out with the "cool kids," the "nerds," or the "jocks." The same rule seems similar to how PR can affect the image of your startup. If you have the NY Times write about you, you can bet that people will believe in the credibility of your business. If you have an article in TechCrunch, you won't be guaranteed credibility, but you’ll be in with the "cool kids," of the startup community. So, PR is not just about reaching as many people as you possibly can, it's also about associating with the sources that you want. The sources for PR that you choose become part of the story that your startup wants to tell, whether your goal is to convert customers, become a thought leader, or launch an innovative technology. 

So, PR is storytelling. It is working with reporters in order to take a pre-fabricated message and deliver it to the public in such a way that they believe their interest and dedication to your company was completely organic. That is what Mike Farber and his team at LaunchSquad do for aspiring startups who seek to win the hearts and minds of their audiences, and all of us at Summer@Highland benefited from our discussion with Mike.