Beanbag

 With the persistently gloomy news agenda of credit crunches and house price deflation it’s a ray of light in a dark news world to read about a PR firm in Chicago managing to transcend money issues altogether with the introduction of an  employee appreciation programme which aims to reward staff with positive feedback rather than cash.

Here’s an excerpt from their press release about it:

 CEO of Chicago-based Empower PR Sam Chapman learned the benefits of this new theory firsthand. After implementing an “appreciation beanbag toss” every week in his office (in which he and his employees would toss a beanbag to each other and share meaningful appreciations), his clients tripled in number and his bottom line increased dramatically.

Is this weird? I’m not sure. Looking at their client list which includes ‘the nation’s leading sex therapist’ and ‘Space Command’s stress doctor’ it looks like it may just be a classic case of the PR agency adopting their client’s values. As my clients are mostly in online marketing, I guess I’d eventually end up doing a PR blog on a website about marketing..