The race is on

Thanksgiving is over. Now we start the Iditarod of corporate communication; it's mush you huskies, from now until about mid-February, and I'm one of the huskies. I was curious how the load would compare this year and what the market mix would be. And here's the news as of today: 

The load is a 9 on a scale of 1-to-10, with 10 being the highest. The mix includes the usual suspects (annual reports, kickoff meetings) with a new influx of web work and podcasts. 

For projects already on the books for the next two months:

• There are five clients (two pharmaceutical, two professional services, one energy and communications infrastructure; three are global, one is international, and one is the North American subsidiary of a global enterprise). 

• With multiple projects for some clients, six assignments are leadership-oriented, seven are marketing-related and one is investor-based. Slicing them along media lines, three are face-to-face (meetings or conferences), six are print, four are web and one is a podcast. 

What actual work are we doing with these projects? We're repositioning a multi-billion-dollar business, assimilating an acquisition, launching a new product, aligning a leadership team and reporting to shareholders on what is shaping up as a year of record sales and profits and about an 80 percent decline from a 52-week high in the price of a share of common stock.