One of the first recipients of the Marketing Achievement Award of the Society for Marketing Professional Services and an SMPS Fellow elected by acclaim, she has worked with professional firms and their associations for 30 years. Before beginning Capelin Communications, she served as director of corporate communications for one of the country's largest full-service design firms. She has lectured for many professional service and public relations groups, and at universities around the United States. Her articles appear regularly, and she authors a column syndicated by McGraw-Hill. Her leadership in the design professions has once again been acknowledged, this time by Honorary Membership in the American Institute of Architects, the highest honor the AIA gives to a person who is not an architect.
Some firms are especially well connected in a specific location.
Others have offices around the world. Some adeptly promote products - although there is a world of difference between marketing and public relations for a product and for a service. To our knowledge, few public relations practitioners can read a working drawing, follow a master plan, find their way through a zoning ordinance or building-related legislation, appreciate a design detail, grasp the importance of changing technologies, or understand their role in the overall project. Nowadays, when so many marketing professionals in the design and building industry are fledglings or temporary consultants, firms are best served by turning to a consulting practice that is widely considered an industry stalwart and whose leader has defined the standards. To be truly effective in the specialty where we spend our lives, a consultant must fathom the process, the professional's aspirations, the client's goals - and then relate these to what the users, the community, or the nation needs or expects to know.