by Suzanne Hanney, President
IWPA Begins Where Journalism School Left Off
by Suzanne Hanney, President
Journalism school gave me many things I've found essential in business: a conciseness in evaluating information, an ethical framework and the ability to find the "news" or uniqueness in any situation. (To be news, it has to be close geographically, or of great impact, and to a great many people; human interest generally derives from the other three.)
Which was all wonderful for my editors, but what about me?
Because IWPA members are in such diverse communication fields - from publishing
to freelance writing to public relations - the association helps me develop
those skills to my own entrepreneurial advantage.
The best example is how it helped me start thinking of marketing my father's
radio show concept. Daddy had been a writer in the 1940s for Don Ameche and
the First Nighter, and my mother mentioned the name of an unsold work after
his death. After Mom died, I found two scripts and a concept for a series in
a drawer. Never having read his work, I hadn't realized he could be so funny!
A Saturday night spent driving back from an IWPA event at Bradley University
in Peoria soon afterward was the first occasion I had to listen to radio serials.
I took note of the dialog and even the use of sound effects.
Not long afterward, IWPA had a speaker on intellectual property, or how we could
turn our thoughts into products and market them. The speaker, a lawyer, even
delineated how I could fill out the copyright form to reflect that I had inherited
the scripts. (Attach all birth and death certificates and my parents' marriage
license, for one thing, she advised.)
Later, IWPA hosted another lawyer on the intellectual property concept, who
enlarged my knowledge. In this case, there were some Japanese photographs, nearly
a century old, from my father's family. The originals might be protected by
a copyright somewhere, but my arrangement of them in an exhibition would be
my own, new work. My grandmother's colorations were also an enhancement to the
photographs that might belong to me now.
The idea of developing an old medium with today's technology helped me see Daddy's
writing as fresh and applicable to today. Better still, a marketing gimmick
he had added to the concept over 60 years ago was a marvelous twist that I could
apply to the Internet.
Thanks to what I learned through IWPA, I've been able to break down a mammoth
task. I've duplicated the scripts and downloaded the copyright forms. And, I've
absorbed how other members and speakers have promoted their own cherished works.